The Light at the End of the Tunnel
by Betz88
Summary: Set around Season Three's episode: WORDS AND DEEDS. Wilson's gift of the red necktie takes on a life of its own, and soon takes center stage. House and Wilson discover a few truths about the true nature of their friendship.
1. Chapter 1

"The Light at the End of the Tunnel"

Betz88

Chapter One

"Sleeping Giant"

It was very dark in the hours just before dawn.

Even in a town the size of this one, things quieted down from time to time. The frenzied activities of daylight hours faded gradually into the solitude of low clouds and a quarter moon. People slept and not even a dog barked. Most of the snow from a few days before had been plowed away, shoveled away, blown away. Residual whiteness lurked on windowsills and in dark crevices. Sort of like an old Christmas card. The landscape was bleak, New Jersey still gripped in the stranglehold of the cold season. Two weeks past Groundhog Day, winter wasn't ready to let go.

Out here, away from the center of town, there were no traffic lights on every corner, no roar of automobile engines or honk of delivery vans. The area around the hospital was somnolent as a drunken giant. An occasional car stabbed a narrow path of light along the macadam beneath the bright array of area lights, and then disappeared again into a black void as the quiet night swallowed it up again.

Across from the brightly lit ambulance entrance an alley cat melted off the curb and scurried across to vanish within the snow-choked bushes surrounding the large sign that read: "Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital". On the other side, the cat emerged again. Feral and wary, it undulated across the hospital entrance beneath the pool of ambient light, crouched like a furred millipede, and was once more lost from view

toward the opposite end of the building.

It was quiet inside the emergency room also. There had been no activity there since before midnight. Even for a Sunday, this was unusual. In the final hour of inky blackness between four and five a.m. when birds awoke to greet the day and traffic began to hammer the Monday morning streets, it was almost a ghost town. Nothing stirred behind the old brick walls except the shadows of employees on duty, passing from time to time like ghosts that floated across the lighted windows.

The upper floors of the medical complex's main building were dimly lit from within. The wards, the semi-private and private rooms were darkened except for auxiliary lights along the baseboards. Light filtered in from the corridors, and the rectangular windows looked, from the outside, like the portals of a ship at night, far out at sea.

On lower floors, lights were brighter. The lobby, as always, glowed like a beacon of welcome that spread light out the main entrance and into the parking lot. One man and one woman sat idle behind the admissions desk, one reading a newspaper and the other working a crossword puzzle. Both yawned intermittently.

The Hospital Administrator's large office was dimly lit, not completely dark. The clinic across the lobby from it stood empty of patients, looking like a sculpture in bas- relief.

Attending physicians on night call passed through at irregular intervals, their footfalls thudding dully on the polished floor. Nurses armed with clipboards and stethoscopes and running shoes, squeaked their way in and out on important missions with obscure destinations.

On the fourth floor the offices of the hospital's department heads were dark. No need for lights in those places after their directors had gone home for the night. Only the clank of cleaning implements and the rumble of maintenance carts echoed in the hallways as people from Housekeeping attended to their nightly tasks, one office at a time.

The cleaning woman on this wing had just turned off the lights and locked the doors to the Head of Diagnostics' two-room suite. Her next stop was down the corridor and around the corner to the right; the Director of Oncology's roomy chambers. She pushed her cart wearily ahead of her, thumbing through the large ring for the correct key.

There was a white placard hanging from the door handle of Dr. Wilson's office. She squinted to read what it said.

_Please do not disturb._

She frowned, wondering idly if he was still in there. Not likely. The room was inky black except for a few stabs of light from the street that crossed his balcony and entered the room at a distorted angle. Perhaps Dr. Wilson had left important papers lying about that he didn't want disturbed. He was known to do that once in awhile. She shrugged to herself and pushed her cart on past his door. Left the placard hanging. Small favors. Her workload would be a little lighter tonight.

In the wake of the woman's passage, a figure emerged from shadow, took a deep breath and expelled it, easing his office chair away from the place where he'd had it backed tightly into the corner.

The man occupying the chair was troubled.

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	2. Chapter 2

"The Light at the End of the Tunnel"

Chapter Two

"Cigarette Smoke and Homicidal Tendencies"

I felt myself hunching back, pressing my chair into the corner like a naughty child until the cleaning woman saw the sign and passed on by.

It is so late by now that the word has lost its meaning. "Early" would be more accurate.

It's been a hellish time for every one of us, and I should be relieved that it's almost over. But for some reason I'm not. And _it's _not!

I went back to the hotel tonight … last night … whenever … to try to get some sleep. But it didn't happen. I lay on top the bedclothes in my shorts and tee shirt, tossing and turning like a man with a guilty conscience.

_And there it was!_

After that, my guilt wouldn't let me sleep. This tragedy of errors has twisted my friend's life away from his control … and mine into the grim role of judge and jury … _long_ before all of us would end up in a courtroom. Another hour of restlessness had my muscles bunched to the point that I felt like a pretzel. Any wish for restful sleep was out of the question. I pulled on jeans, sneakers and an old McGill sweatshirt and walked the mile or so from my hotel room to the hospital. I let myself in and took the elevator up. Locked myself inside my office to think.

All the guilt I'm feeling now because of the things I had accused him of; all my narrow-minded assumptions; all my misguided attempts to help him that only turned him further and further away from me, have come back to mock me. The last thing I ever wanted to happen … happened. There was a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that I might have lost his friendship forever.

How justified I'd felt later when Gregory House finally checked into rehab! We'd backed him into a corner, and he had nowhere left to go.

How callous I was. How cruel. I could not experience his pain within my own body, so how could I possibly understand or relate to the screaming toll of agony it took on his?

He knew all along about the misdirected logic of my thinking. He knew I was following the herd instinct I'd learned in medical school about directing an "addict" by any means possible away from his addiction. Confrontation … intervention … threats of jail time and cessation of medical privileges … withdrawal of prescriptions for the medication he needed so badly in order to function.

But House was ahead of me all the way, and that fact slammed home hard and fast when I saw the look of betrayal on his face. He'd been loudly disdainful of my efforts long before that. I'd seen the hurt in his eyes when Detective Tritter delivered his ultimatum there in House's office. When House shifted his gaze from Tritter to me, I saw the hurt turn to a homicidal glint spiking outward. At that moment I was thankful he didn't have a gun. He was given three days to decide how he would play it out, and my mind still echoes the anguished shout that reverberated throughout that office:

"_I was in pain!"_

Then, for the third time he threw Tritter out, thereby sealing his own fate. I followed Tritter out the door and into the hallway, my heart filled with regret and despair.

The first time I visited him in rehab he was a mess. Disheveled, complacent, despondent, and his sallow face radiated a seething anger. He sat on top of a small writing desk, bum leg hitched up, leaning dispiritedly beside a half-open window. He was still wearing the same rumpled shirt and pants he'd checked with. His head rested against the wall and he looked half unaware of his surroundings. A dull grey institutional, creased-in-all-the-wrong-places bathrobe was pulled over his soiled clothing, hanging down across both legs. His bloodshot eyes were bleak, but broadcasting defiance at the same time.

I lowered myself onto an uncomfortable chair that was pulled close to the hard surface where he sat hunched, and glared at him. Self-righteousness prevailed, painted loudly across my face like clown makeup. He glared back. He held a lit cigarette clumsily between the first two fingers of his right hand, and dragged on it just as clumsily. He'd quit smoking years before, and the damn cigarette was at most a grotesque theatrical prop to help calm the shakes.

The conversation, as usual, was non-productive. I made some profound, insensitive remarks that he scoffed at. He told me he was sick of platitudes … and I could leave. Accusations and denial. He blew cigarette smoke in my face and smirked when I drew away from it. I walked out filled with righteous indignation, determined to let him sit there and rot.

That resolution lasted all of ten seconds. I wandered through the hallway to the elevator, disheartened, looking down at the floor to hide my face from passersby. My frustration was making my eyes water.

Thoughts. Regrets. It all haunts me here in the wee hours. We were right, dammit, but something about it turned out very wrong. Second thoughts roll around in my head like ping-pong balls at church-basement Bingo. Jumbled, half incoherent.

And there is still the mystery of the damned necktie …

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5


	3. Chapter 3

"The Light at the End of the Tunnel"

Chapter Three

"The Saga of the Red Necktie"

Today I had swallowed my pride. I had left him to stew in his own juices, and I was becoming curious about how he was doing. Maybe "curious" wasn't the right word. It was more like an obsession to know whether Gregory House was all right. I missed him. I missed his big mouth, his restless energy, his ongoing predilection to butt into my business and fry my brain with his incessant gabbery and hospital gossip and unceasing sexual innuendo.

I made up my mind to go back up there after work. I decided suddenly that I might need a good reason for a visit so soon after our latest altercation. Something tangible to offset any suspicion he would have that I was indeed "checking" on him. I put my brain to the task of finding the right excuse …

I spent the entire day with my mind only half on the business before me. I was facing a full schedule and I should have been listening to my patients. God knows they deserved my full attention. But I found that I was constantly distracted, my thoughts wandering time after time to the ailing, angry man on the fifth floor.

Did the detox RNs insist that he clean himself up? Or were they letting him sit and stink like the addicts and the drunks that came in off the streets? Had he been offered a shower? Had anyone bothered to stand by while he stood hunched and vulnerable under the hot water? Were they watching in case he lost his precarious balance? That long tiled slab of shower floor was dangerous as hell to a man with a bum leg and deprived of his Vicodin to tame the pain. But what was I thinking? I'd been instrumental in the very act of having it taken away.

Did they insist that he shave? Brush his teeth? Did they give him deodorant? A comb? Cuddy and I had taken him a large plastic bag filled with clothing from his apartment. Did they allow him to have it after they finished rooting through it?

My attention drifted back to the woman sitting in my office before me with a baseball cap pulled low on a head that was naked from chemotherapy. She was asking me a question, and I only half heard her.

"Dr. Wilson? Are you all right?"

My errant thoughts jumped back to the present when she spoke my name. "What? What?" There were tears in my eyes, threatening to spill. Not for her. She saw them and misinterpreted them. I wiped the moisture hastily on a Kleenex from my pocket.

"Dr. Wilson, what's wrong?" She was worried about _me._

I hung my head, ashamed at my unforgivable lack of attention. "I'm so sorry. It's been a … terrible day."

She was terminal … dying … and she was comforting me. I felt like an undeserving ass. I _was_ an undeserving ass!

Willow Ann Johnson had been beautiful once. Now her dark skin was grey, her body skeletal and grotesque. She had little time left on this Earth, and she reached out a hand to lay it gently on my forearm. "You see so much of death, don't you, Dr. Wilson?"

I nodded, quite unable to speak. The tears still in my eyes were from shame, not pain. Thank God she had no way of knowing. At the conclusion of her appointment, I hugged her to me gently. Neither of us had any idea if we'd ever meet again.

Still half in a daze, and further distracted by the dying woman, I left the hospital after work and drove to my personal favorite of all Princeton's fashionable men's stores. My delinquent thoughts had decided on the excuse I needed in order to pay a legitimate visit to House in rehab. There was nothing I could do for Willow Ann. There might be something I could do for House.

I parked in "Nathan's" lot and went inside. One of the salesmen on duty I recognized, and one I didn't. I nodded to Nathan, the owner, and wandered over near the center of the store where a display of men's accessories was arrayed. Neither man bothered me as I walked aimlessly up and down the aisles, looking for … what? I didn't know. I would know it when I saw it.

House's formal court hearing was two days hence.

He had a few nice business suits if he chose to wear one of them. He had a few decent shirts. He had neckties, which he hated. A total of two or three, maybe. I'd seen him in the blue one and the brown one. He'd surely chosen the brown one to hide possible … probable … gravy stains. The blue one? Who knew?

He would not be caught dead in shoes other than sneakers. Thanks to the ruined quadriceps in his thigh, he had little control of the nerve groups that led to the plantar quadrate muscle in his right foot. It was easier for him to lift his heel than his toes. The slap of a single, hard leather shoe sole echoing in uneven cadence in the halls of any municipal building, would draw attention to his disability like paper clips to a magnet.

Just what he needed!

Wanted.

Railed against.

I stopped in front of a dozen racks of neckties. Plain. Fancy. Silk. Thirty-dollar price tags. There was one decked out with the Tasmanian Devil. One with Marvin the Martian. NASCAR drivers, NFL and college teams. MLB. There was even one with Grave Digger on it. Price: $49.95. Yeah, right!

Any other time I might have been seduced by House's weird sense of humor. But he was facing the possibility of a hefty prison sentence, so it was not the time for levity.

I chose a bright red one with small black and white circles in a geometric pattern. Sedate. Dignified. Formal. Everything House was not. I pictured my friend holding the thing at arms' length, peering at it critically and then glaring at me with a suspicious gleam in his eyes.

I held the red necktie at arms' length myself … looking at it critically. The image of House's snarky facial expression made me smile to myself. That brought a frown from the clerk I didn't know, who was hovering close by. I met the man's eyes, wrinkled my nose and then chuckled out loud just to bug him.

House was rubbing off on _me!_

I paid the $29.95 and even got a gift bag for the tie. I could just hear House snickering: "Geeks bearing gifts …" or something equally insulting.

I picked up the pale yellow bag, nodded to Nathan who stood smiling from a row of coat racks in the back corner of the store, and walked out the door.

My ticket to the rehab floor.

_Admit one!_

Unlike House, however, I could leave when I chose …

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	4. Chapter 4

"The Light at the End of the Tunnel"

Chapter Four

"The Condolence Call"

Sitting there in "Nathan's" parking lot, I debated whether or not to go back to my hotel room and shave and shower before visiting with House in rehab.

The debate didn't last long. The drive back to the hospital was only a couple of blocks, but to get to The Drake where I was staying was about a twenty-minute trek through downtown rush-hour traffic. No way! If I looked fresh and well groomed, House would find a way to make sport of it. Neither did I want him to see me looking as washed out as he was … and making some kind of sarcastic big deal out of that too. I shrugged to myself, unlocked the car and tossed the gift bag over onto the passenger seat. It was cold out, and I pulled my overcoat closer around me as I slid tiredly behind the wheel and turned the key in the ignition.

I stopped in the men's rest room on the fifth floor, washed my hands and ran a comb through my windblown hair before going on over to the rehab wing. Actually, the ride downtown and the chill air had refreshed me more than I'd realized. I decided I was ready to cope with whatever House might throw at me when I walked in there …

Cameron, Chase and Foreman were just leaving when I stepped through the door with the gift bag hanging off my fingers. I caught the tail end of a sarcastic remark about: "… the next condolence call …" so I knew House had seen me coming. I nodded absently to the three younger ones, all of them looking very serious. I knew they were deeply involved in the case of a young fireman, and had come up there to report their continued diagnostic difficulties to House … rehab restrictions or not.

He watched them leave, seemingly disinterested, and then monitored my approach, step by step, with hooded eyes. Head lowered, he finally looked up at me through beetled brows and long lashes. He was girding himself for my next harangue about his lousy attitude and his refusal to yield to the gravity of his situation.

I didn't give him the chance to launch a verbal assault. Instead, I tossed the gift bag to him and said something like: "Got'cha something …" I sat down across from him.

He caught it lightly between both hands. Good reflexes. Still watching me with suspicion. He looked it over, reached inside, drew out the necktie. A handful of red silky material overflowed his fingers. Price tag hanging down. He frowned and looked across at me, eyes full of questions. Held it up toward the light and studied it. I could imagine the circus parade of snarky remarks running through that steel-trap mind. I had run through most of his repertoire myself back at the men's store. I sat there. Waited.

"Nice …"

The stocky floor attendant whom he had dubbed "Voldemort", looked up from his medication charting suspiciously, and House tipped the gift bag in his direction. No contraband. The guy nodded minimally and went back to what he was doing. House continued to scrutinize the tie …

… and I continued to scrutinize _him._ A lot of disconnected thoughts raced through my mind in those few seconds.

He had showered; the rumpled suit and yucky shirt discarded. His eyes were clear. Nothing "stoned" about them anymore. His hair wasn't exactly styled, but it did look as though it might have had a close encounter with a comb at least once during the day. He was back in blue jeans and a brown tee shirt; clothing I recognized from the plastic bag Cuddy and I had rescued from his place the day before. He had not shaved. His beard reminded me fleetingly of the "roughening coal pile" in the old song by Roger Miller. But he was absolutely, positively, unequivocally clean and sober.

House looked grey and tired and wrung out. Pain lines were carved deeply into every weathered plane of his face. But even those were not as severely entrenched as they'd been on Christmas Eve, the night he had hit rock bottom. He looked like someone who needed to sleep for a week.

I could feel the emotion surging upward as I looked at him, but I did not dare let it show. I covered my surprise with some asinine comment about the damned tie making a "good impression on the judge."

He scoffed slightly and his attention shifted back to me. He was looking me in the eyes, and that was refreshing and different. Usually, he looked everywhere _but!_

He couldn't allow me to have the last word. "It's not _that_ nice," he scoffed, but there was no rancor in the words.

I simply sat and watched intently. I made no remarks about addiction. No: "I-told-you-so"attitude in my demeanor. If he was making a clumsy attempt to change things for the better between us, then so was I. I resettled myself to a more comfortable position in the chair and continued to study him closely.

He hesitated for a heartbeat. Tilted his head just a tad.

"I had no business blaming you for any of this …" His speech was low. Thoughtful.

I froze. Was he for real? I could feel my eyebrows moving toward one another, reacting to my astonishment.

He continued, his voice tightening. "I know you were just trying to help me …protect me. That's what friends do." He was baring his soul to me as deeply as he was capable of doing so, and I felt a lump rising in my throat. I fought it.

"Is this … an _apology??"_

His eyes went closed for a moment. Reluctant to look back up at me?

"Part of the program," he said quickly, twisting his voice around the words, doing his best to turn the sincerity he didn't quite know how to handle, back into snark.

His expression darkened and he took a deep breath, stalling. "If ya don't like it, I can stop …" His eyes were pleading for my understanding, and at the same time daring me to treat it in the flippant manner he had come to expect.

I did not take the bait. I held back on the sarcasm, but tossed him the affectionate rejoinder his heart longed for; that tiny spark of hope I saw pour out of him like the sudden release of a breath held too long.

The answer I gave in return must have been the one he was looking for. "Not at all!" I assured him. "It's just so … _unfamiliar! _Please … keep going …"

That's when he smiled. He smiled with his eyes first. Then his face followed through in an open expression of unbridled relief I hadn't seen from Gregg House in a long, long time. I could feel my heart racing like a trip hammer.

I thought: _"My God! Am I really going to get my friend back?"_

_Oh God … oh God … oh God …_

I left him shortly after that.

I rose from the chair and stood looking down at him. He was still holding onto the necktie, gripping it with both hands like a lifeline leading from someone whose respect he thought he had lost a long time before.

"Get some sleep," I said finally "You look like death warmed over."

He snorted softly. "Thanks …"

I walked away from him, paused at the door and looked back. "Goodnight, House."

"G'night, Wilson." The red necktie was wrapped around his wrist.

I was tired to the bone, but as I neared my car, my footsteps suddenly developed a spring to them that hadn't been there in ages.

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	5. Chapter 5

"The Light at the End of the Tunnel"

Chapter Five

"The Curse of A Sleepless Night"

Tired. Tired times three.

I drove back to the hotel. Achy tired … nervous tired … worried tired.

Shaky, headachy and beginning to run a temp. I walked through the hotel's lobby ignoring everyone I saw, rode up to my room, unlocked the door and stepped inside. Relocked and threw my keys on the table. The echo within the cavernous room hit me like a bowling ball hits tenpins. Ka-blam!

_Ow!_

I skimmed off my coat; sweater vest and suit jacket and let them drop on the fancy damask-covered chair by the window. I loosened my tie and tossed it onto the pile too, then unbuttoned my shirt and collapsed on the edge of the bed. Beyond the big window across from me, the lights of Princeton's busy downtown glared through the dirt-streaked plate glass. I closed my eyes, but it had already caused a painful buzz in my skull. The small pain that had niggled at me before intensified exponentially.

I sat still a few moments with my head down, trying to ease it. Finally got up again, reached across the library table and pulled the blinds down and the heavy burgundy drapes closer together in the middle. Plopped back down. Now it was pitch dark, an effort just to toe off my shoes and kick them aside. I unbuckled my belt, but it was too much trouble to stand up again and pull off my slacks.

I sat there. Trying to think. What had just happened with my friend? I felt dimwitted, hunchbacked, lonely, hungry, thirsty, guilt ridden and trembling all over. I was feeling too many things all at once, and it was a little disconcerting to try to figure out what everything meant, and what in hell I had done lately to accumulate so much confusion in such a short time.

None of it was that new. It was an accumulation of so much heartbreak … and the deterioration of a constant in my life that had been falling apart in stages for months.

My association with Gregory House had started slowly and mounted gradually over a span of more than seventeen years. We were both stubborn creatures, and the road had been rocky all the way. But we trusted each other and believed in each other and guarded one another's backs through the hard times.

The friendship had hit a brick wall, however, when the immovable object encountered the irresistible force. His infarction in 1999 took everything we had known and knocked it apart like a collision between two star systems. His bitter anger turned him quickly into someone I couldn't communicate with any longer. In my misguided efforts to help him with the sea change in his life, I only pushed him further away. Like magnets in opposition, we repelled each other.

We barely spoke for almost a year, saw each other seldom, and I watched helplessly from a distance as he struggled with a wheelchair and then crutches, and finally the cane. He remained on invalid status for six months, and visiting him in that miserable upstairs flat was about more than either of us could stomach. We fought like cats and dogs … and House always won. There was an elevator of sorts in that old building, but we never knew if it was going to be functioning or not. He was pretty much a recluse during that time. Two flights of stairs vs. a man on crutches kept him pretty much a caged lion for a long time, and there was no reasoning with him when I urged him to move out of there.

Lisa Cuddy finally issued the ultimatum: "Get your ass over to this hospital and come to work for _me_! You have skills I can use. I need your brain, not your leg. So get over the pity party! Nobody else wants you … and you're useless the way you are!"

Bless her! That took some courage on her part because he had partially blamed her team for the procedures that crippled his leg. I would sometimes think about him and wish for the renewal of the crazy friendship we'd once shared. Sometimes I would mist up when I got lost in his angry suffering, silent pain and stubborn refusal to listen to reason.

When we finally mended the friendship, it was House who made the first move. Now and then I still wonder if he'd ever have done it at all if he hadn't been in such desperate straits that night …

He had finally left the drafty apartment building when it became obvious he could never do stairs again, and he was sick of the rickety old elevator. He could not stay cooped up indefinitely. He had recently moved into the strange little townhouse he still has today. Stacy was long gone and my marriage to Bonnie was just about to go down the drain.

The phone woke the damn dog first. His barking woke Bonnie, and then me. When I told her who it was, she snorted with disdain and remarked that Gregg must be in big trouble to be forced into calling me. He was! I threw on a pair of pants, shirt and shoes and made tracks out of there, wishing only to renew the contact between us.

How pathetic is that?

When I got there, he didn't answer the door. His voice, coming from somewhere deep within, was muffled and laced with pain. He yelled at me to "break the fucking lock!" I found him in the bathroom, bare-ass naked, wedged between the tub and the toilet, turned half on his side.

That was before he had the bathroom remodeled, and it was slippery in there for a crippled guy. His old cell phone lay in a puddle of water in the middle of the slick linoleum floor where it had slipped out of his hand after making the call.

The ankle of his bad leg was wedged between the toilet's ill-placed water-supply valve and the tub's drainpipe, as though he'd slipped somehow trying to get out of the tub and reaching for a towel. His cane was nowhere to be found, and the damp towel lay as mute evidence in a heap nearby. He not only couldn't move to free himself, he was white-faced with useless effort, and the middle of his back was wedged tight against the front leg of the old tub.

"Get me the fuck out of here, Wilson! My leg is on fire and I'm freezing my goddamn ass off. Hurry up, willya?" His face and upper body were dripping with water and tears and sweat, and I was surprised he hadn't passed out.

I knelt at his side and freed him easily. Turned his trapped leg with care until his heel slid out and away from the plumbing. I dragged him onto the rug and laid the towel over his privates. He was so weak physically from his year of trauma, it was no wonder he couldn't pry himself loose. I didn't speak, just sat and supported his back against me. Any attempt at conversation was up to him. I refrained from inquiring how he'd got himself into such a predicament.

Resisted temptation or missed opportunity … I wasn't sure which. He never told me and I never asked.

He sat still for five minutes or more, panting with pain and shaking with cold and trying to pull himself together. I kept one hand near his shoulder, grabbed the towel again and wiped him down like an old race horse, until he calmed and began to breathe easier. His Vicodin bottle was on the tank behind the toilet, and I reached over for it. Handed him two of them, which he gulped down like a starving puppy.

Finally, he turned and glared at me. Swiped across his scruffy beard with the back of a big paw. Took a deep breath and said sarcastically: "How the hell ya been, Wilson? Long time no see. Thanks for bailing out the cripple."

I could have slapped him silly, but didn't. "Just fine, House. Sorry I can't say the same for you. But you're welcome."

He shrugged. "Help me up, willya? I need to put some pants on. Don't want you to get all hot an' bothered, having to look at my sexy naked crippled ass." The word "cripple" in its many forms and connotations, must have become a recent mainstay of his newest snark vocabulary. It disgusted me, but I refrained from comment about that too. It would only have egged him on.

"Your 'sexy crippled ass'," I reminded him, "is hairy and pimply, just like all the other naked asses I've seen in this profession. Here … let me get under your arms and lift."

He let me do it. He had no choice. Body rigid with effort, he got the left leg under him and levered upward at an angle. The right leg was slack and near useless at the moment, and it would take awhile to recover. He couldn't put weight on it. He didn't even try. I half-dragged, half-carried him into his bedroom. Eased him onto the bed, waited until he was ready, then lifted both legs up there and jammed a pillow beneath the injured one. The wound scar from his second surgery was still ugly, and I was staring at it full-on.

It was the first time I had seen it. It was like a small child's aimless finger painting in three dimensions. Red and pink and purple and white, all swirled and deep and puckered. Indented almost to the bone. Still barely healed. Stitch and ligature marks stood out like scattershot on the belly of a dead squirrel. I made a concentrated effort not to react badly.

I turned away from him, aware that his keen eyes followed my every move. "Which one is your underwear drawer?"

"Top right," he said. He clammed up, still glaring at me as I closed my fingers around a pair of grey boxer briefs. I had to help him into them. He could not move the leg.

"Do you think we should make a visit to the Emergency Room?" I asked him, already knowing the answer.

"What the hell are _they_ gonna do? Give me an aspirin and a band-aid and a pat on the head and send me home …" The sarcasm was ripping. I shrugged, keeping occupied helping him ease into a set of heavy grey sweats.

I stayed with him the rest of the night. Plied the wasted thigh muscle with my fingers, helped him with a few elementary bend-straighten exercises to free up a modicum of mobility. Which had him crunching his lip between his teeth and digging his fists into the mattress.

After that, we never spoke of it again.

I sat on the edge of the bed in the silent, dark hotel room and relived the old painful memories. Pent-up emotion rose unbidden and I found my breath hitching in half-remembered sorrow. Or maybe it was just from this evening's initial relief. I wasn't certain which.

Small inroads had been made tonight while the two of us sat opposite one another in that austere, bland rehab dayroom. It was a bland conversation with bland apologies and snatches of old familiar snark … neither of us entirely certain of the other's motives.

The darkness created by the room's closed curtains and blinds had eased the edge of the headache and drained some of the bone-tiredness that had folded me into a blob on the bed. I reached across and turned on the dim lamp on the nightstand and then rose to undo the zipper and let my pants fall down around my ankles. The weight of my wallet and pocket change made a faint jingle and thump on the carpeted floor. The shirt followed, billowing down.

I eased around and lay back on the counterpane. Rested my head on the pillow and covered my eyes with a bent arm. I had stopped shaking, and the slight fever seemed to have lifted also.

My thoughts returned to Gregory House's tired face as he had sat across from me only an hour or so before. My mind's eye replayed his fingers entwined within the silky fabric of the red necktie. Somehow there had been an aura of reverence in that gesture. Tentative. Unspoken. Held at bay.

I thought about the way his body language sometimes substituted for the sentiments he would like to voice, but could never find words. There was something yielding in his posture tonight. I could feel it, although he couldn't say it.

It was enough.

Sleep didn't come. I shifted positions and battled with the pillow. I got up and went to the bathroom. Opened the mini fridge and grabbed a bottle of water. Downed it in six swallows. I was still wide awake.

Finally I got up, pulled on an old pair of jeans, one of my heavy McGill sweatshirts and a pair of sneakers. Retrieved my wallet and spare change from my other pants and my keys from the table inside the door.

The hospital was a mile away, give or take. Maybe the brisk walk would do me good, chase some of the conflicting images out of my head.

Two minutes later I had grabbed my jacket and locked the door behind me.

And now, here I sit … in the inky black of my office. I'd traded one kind of darkness for the darkness of a different order …

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

16


	6. Chapter 6

"The Light at the End of the Tunnel"

Chapter Six

"Early Morning Regrets"

I leaned back in my desk chair, not quite so much into the corner now, but shoved out a little so I could prop my feet on the corner of the desk. The big cherry credenza where I keep my reference books, trophies, toys and hundreds of case files, is now against my right shoulder, and I can prop my head against the side. This way I can look around me and see out the back door onto the balcony without being seen in return. I don't know why I'm concerned about that. House's office is the only one that has direct access to this one, and House isn't exactly in there these days, is he?

The sky has lightened from black to purple now, and in another half hour I'll be able to see silhouettes. The moon has moved down behind the buildings across the street, but there's still a grayish haze descending from the tops of the roofs to the tree line that reminds me of an old piece of dirty canvas someone has torn in half. All ragged edges and scattered threads. The trees are mostly bare at this time of year, but there's enough scraggly leaves still clinging there to make the illusion seem a little eerie.

Streetlights on this particular part of the block are a little closer and a little brighter from my vantage point, because of the hospital zone. They give off a strange pattern of reflections that layer themselves across the balcony wall and climb up the brick façade all the way to the offset where wood takes over from brick. The steeply slanted roofline looms in the near distance.

House is up there … on the fifth floor.

This hospital is old. It has been added to and subtracted from, and remodeled and reconstructed enough times through the years to create a cross between a labyrinth and a rabbit warren. It's enough to confound a first-time visitor to distraction. And does!

Time is passing faster than I want it to, but I sit still and watch the gradual lifting of the shadows. I cross and recross my ankles at the corner of the desk. Early morning light begins to steal across the dark dirty stone, slowly and softly filling the deep crevices in the panorama of the city, reminding me of a crooked checkerboard on the landscape.

I have a full day ahead of me that I wish I did not have to face. Once the workday begins, time will slow down again, and my mind will overlook the long night, fading moment by moment into dawn.

I wonder and worry about my unhappy friend … imprisoned and in pain on the fifth floor, high above my head. I ponder what he might be thinking; whether he, like me, might be lying awake on his lonely bunk, wondering about me as I am wondering about him.

Not likely.

If he is pondering anything, it is probably thoughts of evil intent upon those of us who had a hand in sending him there in the first place …

Ah House … if only we could go back to 1999, you and I …back before this huge chunk of your life was ripped away from you.

If only I'd been there with you to tell the doctors who first treated you … what your name was … who you were … that you were NOT a drug seeker; NOT an addict, for God's sake! Perhaps the outcome might have been different.

If only Julie and I had not opted for a honeymoon in the Bahamas. If only someone had called me in time and told me that my friend was hurt and in trouble…

_If only I had been there, House! But you were in so much pain that you were incoherent and deep in shock, and things got so screwed up. _

_When Stacy finally got there, she made a difficult choice…and it was too late. _

_And when I finally got there … you were crippled for life. _

_If only I had known …_

_Have you ever forgiven me, House?_

If only … 

The first glimmer of morning sun was searching across the pale rooftops high above me, sending fingers of brilliance to reflect off the dirty glass of my balcony door. It caught me in the eyes like daggers, stabbing. Flinching aside and shielding my eyes with one hand, I remembered my note of late last night that sent the lady from the Housekeeping Department rolling her cart past my door and on down the hallway.

Eyes squinted half shut, I watched the bright rainbows of old fingerprints reflecting on the surface near the aluminum push-bar. My mind shifted away from memory and back to reality like a camera doing a slow fade from scripted fantasy to the jolting annoyance of another commercial break.

I must move!

It is nearly six a.m. and I need to get to the showers to wash away the lingering remnants of an uncomfortable night. I need to stand under hot water and lather myself until the layers of guilt and old regret are washed away. Until my hair squeaks with life when I run my fingers through it, until toothpaste and mouthwash remove the foul taste of the past from my mouth. Down the long drain of forgetfulness. …

Yeah … right! 

Clean clothing and my other electric shaver are in my locker, and I must present this oncoming day with a new face and a new attitude. I push away from the desk and stand up with a groan. Both legs are asleep. Knees weak and wobbly. Tight and tingling. Pins and needles in my calves and down to the soles of both feet. Today I will pay the price for a sleepless night and too much stinking thinking.

My body is accustomed to the contours of the big bed in my hotel room, not the balanced, smooth, hard leather of an ergonomic office chair. The chair is meant for easy movement and computer dexterity. Manufactured to make me look efficient when I deal with my patients. It wasn't meant for midnight meanderings or sitting for hours with feet propped up like some old-time newspaper editor.

I am _not_ Perry White!

I leave my office and grab the placard with the note off my door handle, crumple it in my fist as I head for the physicians' shower room.

It is now 6:12 a.m. and the halls are still deserted, lights still dimmed to nighttime mode. I move forward, stiffly. My body is not as supple as it used to be; muscles not as resilient. I'm ouchy all over.

Every step I take, I wonder what House must go through in physical hardship with each morning ritual. I have stayed over at his place from time to time, but he is very tight-lipped about difficulties with _his_ impaired muscles. In comparison to the disability he has had to deal with, I am acting like a whiny child.

I shake my head and determinedly pick up the pace.

Ah House … if only you had even a tiny inkling how much time I waste worrying about your sorry ass …

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

19


	7. Chapter 7

"The Light at the End of the Tunnel"

Chapter Seven

"How Can We Help Him?"

I left the locker room at 6:45 a.m., refreshed.

If I could keep my wits about me, the sleeplessness of last night would fade and I would get my second wind. Hopefully. I walked down the corridor in the direction of the elevators. I felt better than I had when I wandered in here in the middle of the night, all confused and worried and heartsick. I was still worried, but not to the extent that it was making me ill. From the short conversation I'd had with House last evening, I was beginning to believe there might be a light at the end of that long, dark tunnel we'd been traveling for far too long …

I'd stood under the hot shower until my body began to prunify and I began to feel warm again, through and through. I toweled down thoroughly, donned a clean shirt, clean pants, shined shoes, fresh tie and a clean lab coat. I thought I might actually make it through the day if I could keep focused on the things I _needed_ to keep focused on.

Walking along and glancing discreetly around me, I was suddenly discovering that things had changed drastically from the echoing stillness of a half hour ago when I first escaped into the showers.

Now the hallway was exploding with the sights and sounds of people showing up for first shift. Night nurses were at their stations, writing up shift reports and briefing those who were arriving to take over from them. Third shift Attendings were busy signing med forms and waiting for their own people to relieve them. The murmur of voices and early morning banter and intermittent laughter were welcome sounds in my ears. The enticing smell of fresh coffee, already brewing in someone's private percolator at the nurse's station, greeted my vacant senses with a come-hither aroma.

Suddenly I was ravenously hungry and in just the right mood to walk into the cafeteria and grab a cup of coffee of my own. Maybe some eggs and toast. Maybe a short stack of pancakes. Maybe a few minutes to sit and gather my errant thoughts and prepare myself for a full day of appointments with patients. Anything to keep my mind focused on my responsibilities, and not worrying about House's court hearing looming over tomorrow's far horizon.

I rode the elevator to the ground floor and headed across the lobby to the short corridor that led into the cafeteria. The front reception area was beginning to fill with people lining up for clinic, and patients confirming early appointments. I looked around me and saw that our clerical staff and nursing personnel had things well under control. I nodded to a few acquaintances, waved, smiled, and continued on my way.

Halfway there, I heard my name being called from somewhere behind me. I cringed.

_Dr. Cuddy!_

I found that my mouth was tightening, lips pursing in a combination of amusement and chagrin. Was I ready to face the boss at seven in the morning? Lisa Cuddy was not a person who used a gentle voice or gentle words to get what she wanted with recalcitrant staff members. She got people's attention by bellowing like a tugboat in a foggy harbor. I sighed, slowed my pace and waited for her. My hopes for a quiet day went out the window.

Cuddy click-clacked up behind me in her designer shoes, grasped my elbow and tugged me around to face her. "Dr. Wilson, why are you here so early? How did you get to work? Your car isn't in your parking space. Is everything all right?"

By "everything" … I decided she meant House.

I stared blankly into her uncompromising blue eyes. Her multi-question barrage hit me somewhere between a few misfiring synapses in my brain that had not yet fallen in line with my early morning presence. I offered the most intelligent response I could muster.

"Huh?"

She came to a halt in middle of the corridor and I could see storm clouds gathering over her head as she studied me. "Dr. Wilson?"

I stopped because she stopped. "My car? Early? What? What?" I was puzzled. I must have sounded like an idiot.

She was smiling, but vertical lines were deepening between her meticulously plucked brows. "I have never seen a man look so freshly pressed and so totally 'out of it' at the same time as you look this morning. Are you all right? And did you understand the question I just asked you?"

I stared for a moment, blinking, stalling for time as my thought processes attempted to catch up with her words. "I'm fine …" I said at last.

She snorted softly. "Where have I heard _that_ before? He's rubbing off on you, Wilson. Too bad it's not the other way around." She released my arm and the two of us continued into the cafeteria.

We were just in time for the last of the first shifters to be leaving and the first of the night shifters to be arriving. Anyhow, we were at the front of the serving line. I ordered the coffee I'd been craving, and a short stack of pancakes. I motioned her to join me and indicated that it was my treat. She nodded as though she had already accepted the deal. Another very normal Housian ritual … and ordered the same.

I paid the bill and followed her to a corner table where there was no direct overhead light.

We sat.

"What's going on?" She asked. There was no hiding anything from her sharp eyes and uncanny intuition.

I shrugged and sighed, and let my worries find their way to her sympathetic ear. "I talked to House last night," I said, "and when I went back to the hotel, I couldn't sleep. Tossed and turned until the wee hours. I pulled on some old clothes and came back in. Hid in my office to do some serious thinking."

"Where did you park your car?" Tenacity. She was determined to know.

"I walked. It's only about a mile …"

"God!"

She scowled, but she'd found out what she wanted to know. "Did you two argue? Is that what this is?" She took a swallow of her coffee, made a face.

I took a sip of my own and parroted her expression. We'd got the bottom of the pot. "No, not exactly. I took him a present … a new necktie … told him it would make a good impression on the judge. _As if!_ It surprised him. He actually apologized for being such an ass. Said he didn't blame me for what I did. Told me he knew I was trying to look out for him … trying to protect him … or at least that's what he said!"

"What?"

"Yeah. I'm still trying to decide if it was sincere … but I think it was. He wouldn't say that for no reason. So I gave him a break about the addiction stuff."

Lisa Cuddy considered for a moment before she spoke again. "I think the time in rehab is working for him … for now. But why did you back off, James? You've been on him and on him about the effects of the pills on his overall health. Why give him a break now? He'll probably go right back on them the second he gets released from up there. The only reason he stays there now is because of what may happen at the hearing tomorrow."

I was chewing on a mouthful of pancakes, and swallowed before replying. "He's not a little kid, you know," I said with a smile, "even though he acts like a six-year-old a lot of the time. But right now he's in the hands of professionals, and has no choice but to spend time with people who have let drugs and alcohol take them down into the gutter. He's in a very uncomfortable place where he sees first-hand what's going to happen to him if he keeps going the way he was going." I shrugged and took another forkful.

Cuddy looked into my face, considering. I knew she was thinking about my sleepless night, and was already figuring out some of the things that had been eating at me longer than either of us could remember. "Do you think that will work? Aren't you worried about his level of pain? Surely the poor condition of his leg has a huge bearing on the way he …"

"I know. God, I know!"

I interrupted her before she reached the place in my heart that hurt the most, and which preyed on my conscience the hardest. I knew all about House's pain. The reality of it. I knew where he was with it a lot better than she did. I had seen him suffer, and I had seen him practically bite off his tongue rather than show any outward sign of his physical misery.

And I had accused him of being an addict.

Cruelty begets cruelty, and I had been the cruelest of all. I was not going to be that any longer!

Cuddy's only true proof of the reality of his pain had come in the form of House's actual plea of desperation. That … and dropped-to-his-ankles blue jeans in her office late at night … when the pain was eating him up from the inside out, and he could not stand it any longer. And the powers of distraction he had always depended upon no longer worked.

When she told me afterward that she had injected him with saline solution instead of the morphine he had begged for, I had nearly broken down and wept in her presence. I had bottled it up inside for too long.

And now … and now …

"The condition of his leg is the thing that will determine how much 'sobriety' he can handle," I said at last. I dropped my fork. Suddenly I wasn't hungry anymore. I looked across and saw that I wasn't the only one who had stopped eating.

I got up from the table and placed my napkin by my plate. "Let's go for a walk," I said.

"There are things I need to talk to you about in confidence, and you know the walls have ears …"

She nodded.

We parted. She went across to her office for her coat and I went upstairs to retrieve the warm black overcoat I kept in my locker. We met fifteen minutes later in the lobby.

Across the way I saw Allison Cameron standing by the bank of elevators. She was consulting with one of the hospital's neurologists, no doubt about the young fireman they were treating. I saw her glance up and then pause to watch Cuddy and me walk out the front door together. I was doubly glad I had suggested we take a walk.

Down by the water's edge we strolled slowly along one of the jogging trails and returned to the conversation from the cafeteria. The day was warming up a little at 9:00 a.m., and we were in no hurry. My first patient appointment wasn't until 10:30.

"He's lucky to have a friend like you," Cuddy was telling me, and though it was nice to hear and even nicer to have her be the one to say it, the compliment didn't set well. I knew that in truth, my betrayal of House's trust was worse than if I had betrayed a child, because House's trust was very much like that of a child. All or nothing at all. I had let him down when he needed me most. I didn't understand that he was _dependant … _not _addicted!_

At the time I hadn't known the difference. Now I did. He was not trying to get high. As he had tried to explain to me a long time ago, he was trying to get _normal!_ At times his chronic pain drove him out of his mind, and he could not function. He could not eat, he could not sleep, he could not walk … or stand … or sit … or lie down. He could not do most of the things normal people did, because the pain drove him to excesses that normal people would never descend to … or understand … even if they tried all of their days.

Like me!

"Thanks, Lisa," I said. "I appreciate that … but I haven't been much of a friend lately. I have to make it up to him somehow, if I ever expect him to trust me again. And I _want_ him to trust me again. His trust is very important to me."

She smiled, looking up into my face, and I saw an expression of understanding that I didn't quite fathom right away. "I know," she said.

She turned back and suddenly linked her arm through mine as we walked along. "You've done a lot of studying about this, haven't you? Help me, James … tell me what you've found out about cases like his … so I can support him too. It's not gonna be easy, you know. No matter what happens, House is still House … and there'll be plenty of times when we both want to kick his stubborn ass …"

I grinned down at her, and suddenly it was easier to let the words flow. "You and I, you know," I said, "have enabled him for years to get away with addictive behavior. With him it's a little different, in that he isn't abusing Vicodin to get high … only to try to live with the pain and get on with the work that sustains him.

"But he has manipulated us, and we've let him get away with it. When he'd get himself into trouble, we'd bail him out … over and over again … and he took that as permission to repeat it and repeat it until suddenly Lt. Tritter was there like a brick wall and put a stop to it. Tritter did what we should have done a long time ago.

"I'm pretty sure that Tritter must have had someone he loved very much become an addict or an alcoholic … or a combination of both. I think he finally lost that person to the addiction, and it turned him into as much of a hardass as House is. It's another case of the irresistible force colliding with the immovable object … and we're about to find out how it plays out. It all depends on what happens at the courthouse tomorrow.

"It's up to us … you and me … to provide House with the tough love he needs. We must make an honest effort to help him regulate his medication so it can't take him down again. And we have to find a way to get him out of the mess he's got himself into so _that_ doesn't happen again either.

"Can we do it?"

She was listening. Concentrating. I could almost hear and feel the little wheels cranking round and round inside her head.

Then Lisa Cuddy looked up at me for the second time. Her blue eyes were shining with unshed tears, and I had a feeling I knew what the "I know," meant.

"Yes," she declared. "We certainly can!"

Shortly after that, we turned around and headed back to the hospital and our respective duties.

I felt better about tomorrow's hearing.

I thought she did too, although for vastly different reasons than mine …

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

26


	8. Chapter 8

"The Light at the End of the Tunnel"

Chapter Eight

"Rumblings in the Brain"

I got back to my office at 10:15 a.m., still tossing my conversation with Lisa Cuddy around in my head. I hung up the overcoat and put on a lab coat that had been hanging on the peg for days. I guessed I'd go back for the fresh one in the locker room … later.

My thoughts shifted back to House again … wondering how he is faring upstairs right about now. At this hour, they are into morning group therapy. Circle of warm (or not) bodies, some of them still detoxing and sick, some angry and resentful, wishing they were anyplace else but there. House was probably in that category. A few of them dazed and scared to death, beginning to get the feel of what they'd done to themselves to sink so low, and sadly wondering if they'll ever see a light at the end of the tunnel and learn to take life a day at a time.

I know now that Gregory House certainly is not someone who fits snugly into any of those categories. I know now that his desperation for any meager reduction in his relentless pain led him on a long downward spiral that wrung the humanity completely out of him. Even though I saw his pain first-hand, I did not understand it because I had never experienced anything like it myself.

I witnessed his anger, his bitterness and his denial. I watched him as he bore such misery that he was forced to pace and pace and pace until there was a rut worn into his living room floor. I saw his entire arm, from shoulder to fingertips, tremble uncontrollably on that cane because he was hurting so badly that he could barely touch his foot to the floor. I saw the sweat run off his body in waterfalls. And yet, I still could not understand.

Because it wasn't _me!_

Now I believe him! He is close to losing everything to prove it, and I am willing to offer everything I possess to his support. I am willing to be there with the tough love I have learned about and paid for by the coin of my own soul. I will let him berate me and insult me and lash out at me because of his hatred of his own limitations. I will withstand anything he throws at me and be silent, because now I know. I know the pain sometimes drives him beyond the limits of endurance.

I'll be there, as his best friend, and I will give of myself until there is nothing left to give. Because he's worth it. I truly believe that this world is a little better because he's in it. I will share his pain, and I will hold him close when he is exhausted and has nowhere left to turn.

My God! What am I saying here? What am I doing? I am not House's savior. He is not my child. I'm his friend … not his benefactor. And not his Guardian Angel. Snap out of it, Wilson! Get out of your fantasy world and come back to Earth!

I blinked and took a deep breath. I was seeing myself as a knight in shining armour. The hero … gallant and true … carrying the banner of redemption. Saving an irreplaceable life and winning accolades from all over the world. My name in lights!

Good Lord! I looked around the room, dazed, and brought myself back to reality with a jolt.

For a second there, I was in Never-Never Land …

But I'm not Peter Pan, am I?

Or maybe I am.

Still a bit rattled, I settled myself at my desk and pulled out the files for four pending appointments I had scheduled for today. I began reading the first one, crushing the paper between still-trembling fingers, reacquainting myself with the patient already on the list for exploratory surgery in three days.

Presently there was a knock on the hallway door. "It's open," I said. The handle turned and my first patient walked in. Middle aged man in a heavy, New York Giants football jacket, hanging open. A fringe of graying brown hair rode low on his otherwise bald head, putting me in mind of Friar Tuck. Not quite obese, but give him another year. His sport shirt gapped across his expanse of belly, and his beltline ran below his navel because the belt was too short to stay up where it belonged. I indicated the visitor's chair across from me and he sat down heavily.

Carl Brisbane, father of two, married seventeen years. His address placed him as local; somewhere out on Route 206 north of the city. His file said he was an accountant with a logistics firm, and had been recently diagnosed with early stage colon cancer. I was about to find out if he was willing to change his lifestyle drastically so he could live to see his kids grow up. He would have to take better care of himself.

I rose from my chair and extended my hand across the desk. "Hello, Mr. Brisbane. I'm Dr. Wilson. I have good news and bad news …

There were three more first-visit patients with varying degrees of the same story. Two women whose most recent mammograms revealed fast-onset breast cancer, and a little girl about four years of age who would probably not live to celebrate her fifth birthday. It was during interviews like these that I did not feel very much like the "Wonder Boy Oncologist."

After the last interview was over, I stood up and walked across to the balcony door, taking a breather.

Across the expanse of concrete and beyond the barrier of the low brick wall, the office of the Chief Diagnostician was dark and silent. I wished he were there to talk to, to vent my frustrations to. Rant about the sometime-futility of my chosen profession. Just to hear him scoff and make crude jokes and tell me how boring my constant litany was … in his inimitable estimation. Square me with the world again. Damn! I missed his big irreverent mouth.

I decided to take lunch in my office. I could kill two birds with one stone: work on the patient charts and schedule further appointments and two surgeries. My office was quiet, and I could concentrate undisturbed.

I returned to my desk and called down to the cafeteria to have someone deliver a light lunch. I pulled out the first folder and picked up a pen.

Separate phone calls to the administrative staff over in Oncology while waiting for lunch to arrive, quickly verified that arrangements for ORs were being made. I marked the charts separately and began to read slowly through each file. The more I knew about each patient, the better prepared I would be to treat them.

I did not expect it to be Allison Cameron who showed up with my lunch. When she walked through the door carrying my chicken sandwich and coffee, all the hairs at the back of my neck stood on end. I looked up from my work and scowled. There were only two reasons why she would be bothered to bring my food all the way up here. One of them was curiosity. And the other one was, of course, House. One and the same, really.

By the downward cast of her chin, she knew I'd seen through her. But she did not ask. She punctuated the air around us with inconsequential chatter and sprightly platitudes. How was I? … What a pretty winter day … she had been in the cafeteria when my lunch order came in, and since she was coming up here anyway … was I on break, or done for the day … or did I have more appointments later on?

I answered her in monosyllables: I would probably be leaving soon … I needed to take my car for an oil and filter change. I needed to get out and get a breath of fresh air. I tried to talk around the subject that was uppermost in both our minds. House's difficulties in rehab, I reasoned, or lack thereof, were his own concerns, and he should be the only one to detail them to anyone … if ever … which I highly doubted.

Cameron prattled on about Derek the fireman and his unprecedented coronary attacks. But those were part of House's milieu, not mine. Her eyes traveled over my desk and the files scattered there. Looking for … what? Anything with House's name on it!

Sorry.

All this time Cameron never mentioned his name out loud. I unwrapped my sandwich and took a bite. Took a swallow of my coffee. Wondered if she'd also volunteer to take the payment for my meal back down to the lady at the cafeteria. I thought probably not, so I didn't mention it. They knew I would stop by eventually.

"I saw you leave with Dr. Cuddy this morning …" she said with a suggestive lilt.

I nodded agreement. Of course she had seen us. How could she not? But her mention of it had just given me a way to opt out that she didn't even realize.

"Yeah," I said, "New Years requisitions." It wasn't exactly a lie. Just not the answer she was expecting. "There's a board meeting the beginning of next week, so Dr. Cuddy and I went for a walk to discuss some of the propositions. There are some sizable expenditures coming up. We have to replace the MRI that the big guy broke. The patch job they did isn't going to last much longer. We'll probably just go ahead and replace it with an open MRI … it seems to be the wave of the future …"

I rambled on and on and on until she got sick of it. She was finally figuring out I wasn't going to talk about House.

She left shortly thereafter, waving from the doorway. "If you see Dr. House …"

"I'll tell him …" and I went back to my charting.

No I won't. 

It was 4:30 p.m. and I was ready to leave.

I needed to drop off my lunch money at the cafeteria, and I thought I actually might stop by Jiffy Lube and get the oil change I'd lied to Cameron about. It was certainly due. Anything to keep from worrying about House, hopefully still getting by okay upstairs … or about the court hearing tomorrow morning … the 19th, like they said.

I had my keys in my left hand and my overcoat thrown over my right arm and was just reaching for the door when the phone on my desk rang.

Should I answer it? Or not? Might be important. I dropped the coat and the keys.

"Dr. Wilson …"

"I need you to stop by my place on your way home."

Guess who!

I hadn't exactly expected smooches over the phone, but … jeeez!

I kept my voice level as I asked politely: "Who is this?"

There was a pregnant pause. I held back a chuckle. The sigh that ensued couldn't have been more dramatic if it had traveled all the way up the neck and out the mouth of a giraffe.

"Wilson, I need my grey suit and my brown shirt. They're hanging on the back of the closet door in the living room. And the flat, soft-sole brown shoes with the red trim. They're probably in the bedroom someplace."

"Anything else you need?"

"Naw, can't think of anything … unless maybe you could smuggle me a beer …"

"In drug and alcohol rehab?"

"Oops. Forgot."

"They'd lay out both our heads on a slab!"

He snickered at that. "We have a free hour or so after supper tonight … up until the eight o'clock AA meeting. I gotta go. Somebody else wants to use the fuckin' phone. See ya."

The receiver in my hand went dead and I stood staring at it stupidly.

Jiffy Lube would have to wait.

I had about an hour to get to the hotel, clean up and get back. Then it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn't even driven the car to work. It was parked behind the hotel. Oh damn!

Biting down hard on my upper lip, I searched for the phone number of a Taxi …

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30


	9. Chapter 9

"The Light at the End of the Tunnel"

Chapter Nine

"Happy Endorphins and a Steak Dinner!"

I rode the elevator down to the ground floor and waited outside at the curb. Lights in the parking lot and along the street were already on, and darkness was closing quickly around me. Cuddy's office was also dark and deserted when I'd walked past it, and I could have kicked myself that I hadn't thought to ask her for a ride home. Neither, obviously, had it occurred to her to offer. Personal routines become so ingrained sometimes that people just don't think about alternate possibilities. I shook my head, frustrated with myself, and lamenting another missed opportunity.

Ten minutes of standing in the freezing cold and gusting wind sent me back to the lobby to wait there instead, rubbing my hands together to warm up. After a half hour or so the taxi finally showed up out front, headlights glaring as it circled and pulled over to the curb. The horn blared. I sighed, half angry, and burst out through the front door.

_Don't blow your damn horn at me! You're the one who's late!_

I clambered into the back seat and gave the guy the address of The Drake.

It was rush hour and traffic was sluggish. He dropped me off at almost 5:15 p.m. I had to get a move on. When I paid the fare, the bills I gave him totaled only a single dollar above what was owed. I strode away from the cab, ignoring his sour looks, and hurried into the lobby. I suddenly remembered I had not dropped off payment for my lunch at the cafeteria. I was tired and worn out and ready to call it a day. A sleepless night and the long workday were taking their toll. I wished I did not have to stop by House's place to pick up his suit and shoes and then hurry right back to the hospital.

Went up to my room, got out of my suit and tie and pulled on another old McGill sweatshirt, jeans and sneakers. At least it felt good to get into leisure clothing. There was no time for a shower and personal grooming right then anyhow. I transferred wallet, pocket change, car keys and other small accouterments into the jeans and rummaged in the closet for my heavy leather jacket. I was beginning to get hungry.

I went down in the elevator and walked past the reception desk, headed for the back door.

My car was in the parking lot and I went to it quickly. Beeped open the door and climbed in, starting the engine and turning the defroster up full blast.

By 6:35 p.m. I was back at the hospital again, pulling into my parking space, grabbing House's suit and shirt in their dry cleaning bag, and his red, brown and tan shoes in a plastic grocery bag. At least everything was where he'd said they were, and I didn't have to hunt them.

When I stepped off the elevator on the fifth floor it was 6:45 p.m. A little over an hour until the AA meeting. I had the clothing bags slug over my shoulder, and my legs and entire body were shaky with fatigue. I hoped House wasn't in one of his moods tonight. I hoped he would talk to me sensibly about tomorrow's hearing so I could drag my weary rear end out of there and go home, shower, and catch up on my sleep.

When I entered the rehab area and looked around, I saw that I was not the only visitor on the floor. Small knots of people were scattered about the room, talking, drinking coffee or tea or chocolate milk. Friends and relatives were there with some of the patients.

Other lost souls, I noticed, however, were alone and isolated. No visitors, no smiles on their faces. Hunched and angry and pretending they didn't give a shit that nobody _else_ gave a shit either! They hadn't yet learned to turn to each other.

House was nowhere to be seen. The attendant he had nicknamed Voldemort, however, wandered watchfully along the fringes of the room, probably making sure no contraband changed hands. There was another man and a woman backing him up from other parts of the room, and I wondered what would happen if someone were to be caught with drugs or alcohol …

Voldemort saw me coming, saw the clothing bags over my shoulder and moved toward me. I surrendered the suit, the shirt and the shoes to his scrutiny. He checked them briefly and then nodded at me to go on through.

"Gregg is in his quarters," the man said. (Only first names allowed.) "He's resting until the meeting. I think his leg is acting up. He's … not in a very good mood …"

_He's _usually_ not in a very good mood!_ I thought. _You should try intractable pain and no hydrocodone to take the edge off!_ I nodded and walked past him, into the hallway and a short parade of steps to House's room.

Pausing at the doorway, I looked in at him. He was stretched flat out on the bed, on top of the covers. He was wearing institutional P. J.s, and the same institutional bathrobe he'd had pulled over his clothing two nights ago. His "roughening coalpile" of greying beard had taken on Paul Bunyan proportions. His left arm was bent and resting across his eyes, and the fingers of his right hand were twisted in the blanket. His breathing was shallow.

I hung the two plastic bags on the doorknob and walked slowly over to the bed. I knew he was not asleep, and he knew that I knew. I sat down gingerly well below the spot where his right foot, clad in a heavy grey sock, rested atop the covers. The only pillow on the bed was shoved in haphazard fashion beneath his knee

"Hey," I said. "Brought your suit and shirt and shoes." I paused, gauging the probable tone of his response before I even asked the obvious question:

"How bad?"

The arm came down gradually and he looked me in the eye. The usual blue spark was dulled to embers.

"Bad," he whispered. He turned his face to the wall. Didn't want me to witness the pained grimace he could not disguise.

So there wasn't going to be a confrontation between us. He might be scared of the violence factor brought on by the pain.

I chanced another question

"Had your evening meds yet?" It was difficult to know how to talk to him … how the pain would influence his response.

I was rather surprised when he answered without the usual snark. "Yeah. An hour ago."

"No help?"

"It helped … for about ten minutes …" He began to gather himself to sit up.

I held up my hand and he stopped mid-motion. "How about some happy endorphins?"

He settled back, momentarily. Stared bullet holes into my forehead. "You're not that good!" Some of the spark came back to his eyes. He knew exactly what I meant.

"Don't kid yourself!" I stood up and removed my jacket. Hung it over the footboard of the bed. When I sat down again, I had moved about ten inches closer to his foot. I reached down carefully, feeling out the pressure points through the heavy sock.

He flinched and pulled a quick indrawn breath. His lips curled up. I waited until he was ready, and then began the deep massage, pressing the tight tendons and ligaments and sore muscles hard and expertly with my strong hands. I had done this for him before … mostly at his request. I saw his face soften a bit as I worked. I had never done the foot massage voluntarily before and he was puzzled.

I did not stop working even as I saw him begin to relax. I kept going, moving from instep to arch, palpating the abductor hallucis, plantar aponeurosis and the abductor digiti minimi. House's feet were long and thin, and I could feel with my fingertips all the way to his metatarsals.

His face was a tight grimace now, teeth clamped onto his lower lip. But he was not bitching or cursing or pulling away from me. Finally he grunted. "Jesus! That hurts!" He growled. "All the way to my pecker!"

"Pretend I'm a fantasy hooker with a rubber hose!" I shot back, and dug in again at the sole of his foot, moving toward the heel and kneading his calcaneum with both thumbs.

The grimace turned to a smile, and I wondered what was rattling around inside that fertile brain. I decided I didn't want to know, and ignored him.

Fifteen minutes into the session, my hands felt like dead limbs hanging off a dead tree. He was staring at me with pursed lips. The eyes were calculating. The little wheels still turning. "What's this gonna cost me?" He finally asked.

I sat back, released his foot and placed it gently back on the bed. My hands fell at my sides, tingling with exertion. I hadn't done a massage that had lasted this long in a very long time. I looked up at him and grinned a little. I hadn't realized I was sweating, and the neck of my shirt was wringing wet. "A steak dinner!" I declared. "At a really good restaurant."

He frowned. "By the time I get out of jail," he retorted, "they probably won't be killing cows for food anymore."

"Stop that! Dammit, House … if you weren't such a stubborn jackass, you wouldn't be in this mess. All you had to do was apologize to Tritter for jamming a thermometer up his ass and walking away."

"It was a matter of pride."

"Yeah, and here we are." I saw him gearing up for another retort, but I headed it off at the pass. "How's your leg? Did that help any?"

He nodded, and his gathering head of steam deflated a tad. "Yeah. It did, Wilson. Thanks."

"'That's what friends do,'" I quoted back to him.

He met my gaze for a moment, but then his eyes fell away to the side, and I knew I had hit an emotional no-no with him. We did not talk sentimental talk. It was not manly in his estimation. He was the one to decide when sincerity was to be spoken … not me. I shrugged it off. House was House.

"You gonna be okay for the hearing tomorrow?" I asked instead.

He sighed. "Yeah." His eyes switched back to mine and held there for a moment, as though he was the one gauging a reaction. "You know I didn't do anything wrong, don't you, Wilson? You know I was only trying to manage the pain …"

I nodded, willing to let the conversation go where it may, and follow along for the ride.

"Of course I know, even though I learned a little late. A lot of the things I said to you were unfair … but you didn't handle it very well either. It didn't have to come to this. You know I'm here for the long haul. So is Cuddy. So are the kids."

"They say so?"

"Not in so many words, but they are. Nobody wants to see you go to prison … not for a minute. But right now it could go either way."

"Yeah … I know … and the hell of it is, I still have a case pending at the hospital."

He gathered himself gradually and rolled partly onto his right side. Slid both hands beneath his leg and prepared to sit up. As he did so, the counterpane on the bed slid away from its place and crinkled downward a few inches. What peeked from beneath it stilled my heart, dropped my mouth open and widened my eyes. House didn't notice. He was busy settling his feet gingerly on the floor. Stepping into a pair of ugly grey slippers.

He stood slowly, and clasped his cane from the corner where he'd left it leaning against the nightstand. "Gotta pee," he announced, and lurched awkwardly across the room right past me, into the tiny bathroom and closed the door behind him.

When he was safely inside, I moved over and just stood there, looking down at the red necktie, folded neatly in half, twice, sticking out from beneath the white coverlet. I grasped the soft counterpane and tugged it upward sloppily until the telltale red edge was covered again. I sat back down on the bed, wondering what it was that possessed him to keep the thing with him twenty-four hours a day …

When he came back he was followed by Voldemort, announcing that he had about fifteen minutes before it was time for the AA meeting. I knew it was time to leave. _This_ meeting was closed! There were open AA/NA meetings on Sunday afternoons, but for now, all visitors had to vacate. Serious therapy was about to go on here. I stood and faced my friend for the last time before he finally found out in what direction his future would take.

"How will you get to the Court House tomorrow? Would you like me to stop by and pick you up?"

He glared at me for a moment. Exasperation. Then his facial muscles softened. "No," he said. His eyes filled wetly with a kind of resigned sarcasm I had seldom seen in them before.

"I get to ride in a real cop car tomorrow, Dad. Aint that great? Aint I luckin' fucky?"

He turned and limped painfully, silently, out of the room with Voldemort following close behind.

I turned around too, and headed toward the opposite door.

I looked back over my shoulder a moment and stared at the small lump that was my impromptu gift to him, resting under the bedspread. My eyes were burning and I was so tired I was ready to drop.

Why the hell did he have to say it _that_ way?

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36


	10. Chapter 10

"The Light at the End of the Tunnel"

Chapter Ten

"'Hearing' Impaired!""

I went back to the hotel, locked my door and dropped onto the bed like a ton of bricks. Never did get a shower or a shave … or anything else I'd vowed to do earlier. My final waking thoughts were of Gregg House, restless and resentful, clenched and aching in a lonely bunk in a rehab for hard-core drunks and drug abusers, wishing everyone around him would just bite the dust. I wondered if there was anything I could ever do that would help him.

And I had this nagging curiosity about what in the world was going on with the hide-and-seek red necktie. I also had a feeling that something there went much deeper than met the eye.

And then the lights went out … literally … sometime around 9:00 p.m. As though somebody had hit me over the head with a lead pipe.

The night was too short.

My wake-up call came at six in the morning, the usual time for a weekday. A succession of short, irritating rings that persisted until I finally acknowledged it. Then nothing.

I dragged myself off the bed, lifted the receiver off the hook and then hung it up again. Automated courtesy call … a whole new concept of 'non-courtesy' courtesy. I stretched and yawned and listened to my vertebrae snap and crack. I then staggered into the bathroom, relieved myself, turned on the shower hot enough to create steam and send it spiraling upward. I dropped my clothing, piece by piece, in a perfect circle around me, in the middle of the floor.

Stepping into the welcome heat, I stood still, bent forward, head down, arms dangling, letting the water run off me in shimmering rivulets. For ten minutes I luxuriated in the pelting, hot stream of water that invigorated my skin and took away the stiffness that had been accumulating throughout my bones for hours and hours.

Oh man! 

I took my time, not hurrying. There was no need. House's hearing was set to begin at 10:00 a.m., barring any cancellations in the two cases to be presented ahead of his. That wasn't likely. New Jersey had some nasty rules in that regard, and defendants on bail seldom failed to show up for their scheduled appointments.

I dressed leisurely, feeling much better than I had when I came back from visiting House last night. I wasn't too worried about him. He said he would be all right today, but I knew it would be difficult for him, having to sit without reprieve in a hard chair at the defense table in a courtroom with nothing _but_ hard wooden seats. It would go from ten in the morning until whenever they called a recess. Probably about an hour or so into it … if it even lasted that long.

I had myself a great breakfast in the snack bar that ran parallel to the hotel's huge dining room. At seven in the morning, the place was nearly deserted. Early risers were already gone, and the later ones hadn't arrived yet.

I had three mugs of strong delicious coffee, steak and eggs grilled to perfection, and sat there exchanging gossip with the burly African American cook with a longshoreman's sense of humor.

There was no one beside me to snag food from my plate and make a huge show of gobbling it down. I missed House's presence more than I could say.

I laughed so hard at the cook's satirically true, politically incorrect jokes that I was surprised that my food actually went into my mouth rather than on my tie.

The man distracted me completely from worrying about House and his impending doom, and in an abstract way I was grateful for that. By the time we finally ran down, my third cup of coffee was growing cold in front of me, and it was just past 8:30 a.m.

I paid my bill and included a generous tip. He winked and thanked me with a huge white enamel grin, and dipped his chin politely as I walked away. I stopped at the front desk, bought the morning paper and folded it beneath my arm. It was time to go get the car, drive to the hospital and settle up with the cafeteria over there. Finally. One of these days I figured I would go broke paying for restaurant food and takeout. And House.

I was tempted to go up to the fifth floor and see how he was making out. I was certain he would be up and dressed by then, but after further thought, I reconsidered. I had to let him do what he had to do. I left the cafeteria after apologizing for the delay in payment. I got back in my car and drove on over to the courthouse, maybe three quarters of a mile away. It was 9:15 a.m.

The front parking lot was already dotted sporadically with cars of all descriptions, from personal vehicles to county sheriff's cars, black and whites, unmarkeds, and a couple of vans with front license plates that read: "For Official Use Only". It was common knowledge that these vehicles hauled everything from mechanics' tools to cadavers in body bags.

I found a parking space at the end of the third row and pulled in. I unfolded my morning newspaper and cracked it open. It was difficult to concentrate, and I found that my hands were shaking like crazy. I finally gave up on it, folded the thing haphazardly and then just dropped it on the passenger seat. Maybe later.

Lisa Cuddy pulled in next to me at 9:30 a.m. She did not look like she was in any better shape than I was. But she did look stunning in a dark business suit with pink blouse and a simple strand of pearls.

_Cut it out, Wilson!_

I locked my car, walked around the front and climbed into her passenger side.

"Good morning."

"What's good about it?"

That was the end of _that_ conversation. We waited.

At 9:45 a.m. two cars pulled up, one behind the other, in front of the courthouse to our left. Both came to a stop against the curb and sat there with engines running. I could see the exhaust curling upward from their tailpipes. Cuddy and I sat very still and watched. Neither of us made any move to get out.

The lead car was a Princeton City Police black-and-white. Street paint job and a light bar across the roof; a two or three-year-old Crown Vic. The two men in the front seat were easily recognizable: Detective Lt. Michael Tritter and the D. A., Gordon Vickers. We could see them talking, even from this distance. Last minute message comparisons and final correlation of line of questioning and testimony.

The second car was also an official vehicle, but it was an unmarked silver sedan, also a Ford Crown Vic. It had a portable red light on the dashboard, turned off. I did not recognize the driver, a street cop from the ranks, or his companion.

But the profile of the man in the back seat was unmistakable. The stark, sharp profile, the down-thrust chin, the thin shoulders, hunched and still. Gregory House looked as though all the fight had been drained out of him.

I glanced at Cuddy, but she was paying no attention. She was focused as well on the thin figure in the big car about thirty feet away. Cuddy's lips were pursed and her expression was almost that of a mother whose child had run afoul of a truant officer. Her eyes were large and sadly focused, and the look of regret there was even more deeply ingrained than my own. I felt for her as much as I felt for House.

Then three of the doors were opening on the unmarked. Its engine stopped running. The two cops got out and closed their doors behind them. The driver, closest to where we were parked, walked around and opened the back door next to the curb. He backed out of the way and stood beside it.

It took a few seconds for House to work his way out. He slid sideways on the vinyl seat, leaning into the doorframe. He turned slowly and placed his left foot on the sidewalk, then reached beneath his right knee with both hands and extricated the bum leg wretchedly. He placed the right foot beside the left one, then pushed himself to a standing position, not looking about or doing anything other than moving along the curb with rigid concentration.

I found myself frowning.

Was he playing the "cripple card" this morning for all it was worth? He'd been known to do that on occasion. I was imagining a trace of self-satisfied smirk curling into the lines of his face and tugging backward at a corner of his mouth, creating instant inconvenience and discomfort for anyone present as a means of making a statement. He'd been known to do that too.

I scowled at Cuddy and at the same time she was turning to me with the same questioning look in her eye.

"Is he … ?"

House was out of the car now, his dark overcoat pulled tightly around his tall, thin figure, collar turned up against the chill air. He was leaning into the side of the car, now that the doors had all been closed.

He did not have his cane, and he did not remove his hands from their steadying clasp against the grimy rear fender and window ledge behind it. He was not faking … not playing games. He had not been given his cane, and he was hobbled; glued to the spot.

My earlier suspicions were replaced by anger.

Then the door of the black and white opened and the driver got out. Tritter. He held House's cane midway down its shaft and took his time to make sure House saw him with it. He brandished it for a full five seconds while Vickers got out of the other side of the car. Then Tritter sauntered toward House and made a great show of handing it across to its owner.

To his great credit, House said nothing. At least nothing that Cuddy and I could hear. House reached out only to the point that gave Tritter no choice but to step toward him in order to place the stout stick into his hand. House took his cane, grasped the handle and quickly transferred the bulk of the weight of his bad side to its supporting strength. He met Tritter's chagrined look with a noncommittal stare of his own, then turned purposely away, and his gaze lifted.

For a split second his head came around and I saw him look directly at us across the space that divided us. He had seen our cars and knew we were there for him. His medication-deprived body straightened a little more after that.

Tritter and Vickers turned and walked together across the expanse of sidewalk and disappeared into the huge, square vanilla cheese box that was the courthouse. The two cops with House closed in beside him, matched his pace with their own, and accompanied him also toward the entrance.

At the very least, he would not have steps to climb. The curb led straight to the front main entrance.

I wanted to be close by his side so badly that the need was a pain in my chest. Beside me, Cuddy put out her hand to touch softly on my shoulder. She squeezed, snapping me back to reality.

"He did good right then, our impetuous child," she said with a smile. "He could have dug his hole even deeper if he'd taken the bait Tritter held out to him. But he didn't. I have a feeling he's going to do just fine today …"

Her words trailed off and she gave my shoulder a final pat. At that time I had no idea what she was talking about.

Together, we got out of her car and walked side by side into the courthouse.

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41


	11. Chapter 11

"The Light at the End of the Tunnel"

Chapter Eleven

"A Gathering of Vultures"

The building was hot. Stifling. Like a bake oven after the icy cold wind that blew us in off the street. Someone must have turned the thermostat all the way up at 4:00 a.m. and forgotten about it.

Cuddy and I stood in the large vestibule just inside the front doors. We paused there watching as impatient bodies … legal, municipal and constabulary … sidestepped and careened around us. It was a normal mode of operation in this small hectic world of arrogant lawbreakers and determined barristers: business as usual.

We were by no means unique. And certainly not the only two people waiting to witness an evidentiary hearing for someone of importance to them …

Further down the long corridor I could see the two police officers and the hunched body between them as they escorted Gregory House along the path to whatever fate awaited him. I swallowed hard as they turned to the left and entered through a pair of tall doors into what was obviously one of the courtrooms. Beside me, Lisa Cuddy was taking off her heavy coat, folding it over her arm and searching for the women's restroom.

I removed my own coat and held it likewise, but my mind was far away from the place where we'd been standing. She located what she'd been looking for and moved away from me, trailing her fingers gently down my arm.

I stood alone, ruminating, thinking back to those few minutes when I'd stopped by House's place to pick up his suit and shoes. His compact apartment was glaringly hollow and dark without his compelling presence. Only a few times had I ever been there when he was not there also. Something in the aura that surrounded him made that elegant little dump come vibrantly alive; without him it was an empty shell. I wanted to be in and out of there as quickly as possible. I walked down the hallway to his bedroom, my footsteps echoing behind me like marbles through a drainpipe.

In the shoe bag on the back of his closet door were a dozen pairs of running shoes and walking shoes in varying conditions, from dilapidated to fairly new. They all had one thing in common: there was more wear on the left ones than the right. The right shoes of the pairs he wore most often, had serious scrape marks on the inside soles where the ball of the foot met the floor. Or the pavement. He'd been dragging his foot more recently, because he had to concentrate on lifting his leg to take each step. And sometimes he couldn't lift it high enough. And the foot scraped. That worried me.

One pair of formal black leather dress shoes remained in like-new condition in the bag, abandoned and covered by a thin layer of dust. I remembered them. He'd had them long before the infarction; long before he knew that to wear them ever again would draw added attention to his disability like almost nothing else except the presence of the limp and the cane. And there was nothing he could do to be rid of those.

His bedroom closet was surprisingly neat; given House's history of throwing things around and leaving them lay where they fell.

I lifted his red and brown leisure sneakers from their position in the shoebag and started to close the door. Something caught my eye in the far left corner, propped stiffly into the door wall, and I swung the door open again to see what it was.

Long, vertical aluminum rods stood close together there. White pads with extra cushioning attached. Adjusted to the height of a very tall man.

Not dusty. Not in storage. Not crammed back into a far corner. Still in use from time to time. I swallowed heavily and closed my eyes for a moment.

He hadn't told me. Of course he hadn't told me!

My guilt hitched up another notch. His life had probably been a living hell every time one of us found another reason to take his medication away. And yet he had resorted to these damned things only in the privacy of this sanctuary …

I closed the door and stood leaning heavily against it. Moisture welled up quickly within my eyes … and threatened to spill over.

Oh God! And you wonder why he acts like he hates you sometimes … 

When Cuddy came back to my side and touched my arm, I nearly jumped out of my skin.

"James … are you all right?"

I nodded, my breath catching in my throat. I couldn't tell her about my errant thoughts. To do so would only betray House further. I swallowed quickly and flexed my shoulders.

"I was thinking about the hearing," I said quickly. "I'm afraid my imagination was running away with me for a minute there …"

She smiled in understanding. "Mine too," she admitted. We turned to the right and walked in the direction taken by House and the two policemen. "I think it's time to go in there and get ready to face the music."

She did not seem worried. I did not ask.

Together we walked through the door to find a seat.

Tritter and Vickers were already situated in one of the long lines of benches to our right and several rows back, still comparing notes. I could hear them whispering and see them nodding, and I wondered what they could be going on about.

House and his lawyer were settled at the defense table. House sat partially sideways in the chair, his leg stretched rigidly before him. His cane lay across the table within easy reach, and his right hand was on his thigh. Kneading the compromised muscle.

I stepped ahead of Cuddy, anxious to be as close to my friend as I could get. Looking back to assure myself that she was following, I slid into the bench right behind House and his attorney, Madison Sullivan.

House must have felt the movement of air and heard the rustle of our clothing. He straightened in his seat and turned slightly to look around at us.

He was wearing the red necktie. Its knot was straight and true.

His haystack of grey beard had been mowed, replaced by a careful landscaping of his regular scruff. He wore the grey-green suit with grace and aplomb, and the brown shirt was tucked nicely behind its jacket. He wore no tie clasp, but then he never did. I don't think he even has one. And the jacket was unbuttoned and hanging open. I'd never known him to care about that, one way or the other.

The plastic MedID bracelet on his right wrist protruded a quarter inch below his shirt cuff, which, as usual, was unbuttoned. The effect, as a whole, made me smile. He did clean up well … when he wanted to. I saw something light up an appealing spark behind his eyes as he glanced at us quickly and then turned back again.

My throat closed tight at the obvious look of vulnerability. I was desperate to touch him, experience for myself the solid reality of him. I wanted to press my own hand against his shoulder; convey a sense of solidarity between us; a bond that we'd come so close to losing, and now had a chance to regain.

But it never happened. I was too late. I stopped with my hand in midair.

At that moment, Sullivan leaned across to whisper something in House's ear, and the moment was gone. I felt a deep sense of loss as House leaned over to meet him and listen to the man's words.

I dropped my chin and returned my hand to its place in my lap, and was only vaguely aware of Cuddy's fingers as they wrapped themselves around my own. She squeezed gently, and then withdrew to stay within propriety's limits. I was too choked up to acknowledge, but I'm sure she understood.

That was the moment Judge Helen Davis entered from the chambers behind the bench. She walked onto the podium and stood surveying the sparse gathering.

D. A. Vickers left Tritter's side and repaired to his own place at the prosecutor's table.

He placed his materials on the table before him with some deliberation, cleared his throat, glanced around and waited expectantly.

The judge nodded to the bailiff, and the man straightened where he stood.

"All rise … "

There was a small shuffle.

"District court of the city of Princeton, New Jersey. February 19, 2007 A. D. Her Honor Judge Helen Davis presiding. This proceeding will now come to order."

The litigants quickly stiffened in their places.

Prospective witnesses cleared their throats.

Gregory House's friends found that they had sweaty palms … sudden increases in respiration …

_Here we go!_

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45


	12. Chapter 12

"The Light at the End of the Tunnel"

Chapter Twelve

"Kangaroo Court"

Both lawyers went through their opening statements; boring, colorless presentations of facts to be placed in evidence as the hearing wore on. The drone of their voices made me, by varying degrees, tense and lethargic. The heat in the large room seemed to close around me like someone holding a pillow over my face.

Tritter was testifying under Vickers' steady questioning, chronicling the discovery of a stash of drugs and two vials of morphine uncovered in House's apartment. This evidence found by the police had been damning, thanks to a search warrant issued by a judge after Tritter's late-evening visit to the man's home.

Attorney Sullivan argued in return that House was _not_ a drug addict. He was, in fact, a disabled man in constant, debilitating pain, driven to desperation by his need for more and more narcotics in the effort to just take the edge off.

I was suddenly surprised and filled with profound respect for the man. He had indeed done his homework.

The prosecutor's main case, however, hinged on one piece of damning evidence, which might be the one thing that would cause House's downfall.

The drug log from the Oncology Department's night shift pharmacy bore the scrawled, nearly illegible signature of Gregory House. And House had subsequently left with deceased cancer patient Larry Zebaluski's meds. That was the one glaring factor in black and white that could make or break House's case.

After they found that, they did not need me anymore. I had volunteered to be Tritter's Judas Goat for nothing. I had not protected House; I had condemned him.

Michael Tritter sat calmly on the witness stand, his soft, well-modulated voice precisely reiterating the events that took place on the day he'd been humiliated by Dr. House in the hospital's clinic. He then related the events of the evening he'd stopped House on his motorcycle on a suburban street and found him with a jacket pocket full of loose Vicodin pills.

And then I heard the same words over and over again. Like accusations. Words that I knew … and Cuddy knew too … were mockeries of reality:

_Drug Addict:_ Cruising around a quiet neighborhood with a pocketful of unidentified loose narcotics.

_Drug Addict:_ Sneaking a colleague's pad out of his desk drawer and forging his own prescription.

_Drug Addict:_ Stealing a (now deceased) cancer patient's oxycodone pills and getting high on them.

And on and on and on …

House sat in his chair at the defendant's table, not moving much, not reacting much either. With his back to us, Cuddy and I could not see his face, but I was picturing the frown, the smirk, the eyes upturned shamelessly in sham supplication.

His left elbow was propped on the top of the table and the side of his face was leaning into the knuckles of his hand. The fingers of his right hand were drumming in boredom on the shining wood, as though he were waiting impatiently for this farce to be over.

I heard his cell phone ring. Two short, soft chirps. He straightened in his chair and I saw his arm drop, his hand reaching to his inside jacket pocket. He answered, hunkering down in his seat, intending to be as sneaky about it as possible. Beside him, Sullivan growled angrily: "Shut it off!

Judge Davis heard it too, and turned her head in his direction.

He looked up at her, appraising, gauging her reaction, completely unapologetic.

"Dr. House, you were given adequate notice to make arrangements for your patients …"

A pause. A heartbeat. From the angle of his head, I knew the blue eyes were meeting the judge's hard gaze with calm apathy.

"Dr. House! _Now!"_

House cradled the phone to his shoulder for a moment and I knew he held the judge's stare across the intervening space. His tone was calm and filled with puzzled innocence. "Does your voice always get that high when you're angry?" He returned his attention to the phone call: evidently Foreman with bad news about their firefighter.

"Do you want to go to _jail??"_ Davis' voice was rising again in volume and pitch.

On the stand, Tritter's face was hardset. He glared. Vickers was slack jawed in disbelief. Neither man spoke.

"No, thank you," House replied politely. Unhurried. He was enjoying this; smiling in bright-eyed confirmation. He said something else into the phone and snapped it closed.

_Epiphany!_

I saw his face in profile. I knew that look! I saw him struggle to his feet in triumph as Cuddy and Sullivan both whisper-shouted at him to: "Sit _down!"_

But he was already on his way to the door. His limp was heavy, but he was moving fast. "Why? I'm bored. Nothing I can say or do is gonna make a difference here …"

Judge Davis was shrilly declaring something or other about contempt of court if he left now … but her remarks only bounced off the back of a closing door. House was already on the other side of it … and gone.

The courtroom lay stunned and silent. Cuddy stiffened, gathered herself and swept into the aisle, away from my side, hurrying quickly after him.

"Get a recess!" She yelled back at me. I sat silent, thoughts in transition. I refrained from revealing that he had just solved another case.

Sullivan heard what Cuddy said to me and was already motioning for a break in the proceedings.

Judge Davis was about to grant the request. She was too flabbergasted not to.

I gulped. Sat on the hard bench with my mouth open. How in hell was House going to get all the way over to the hospital? He certainly couldn't walk that far. Obviously! They'd brought him here in a police unmarked, and he had no ready means of quick transportation. Would he have to call a taxi and wait in the cold for it to arrive? His damned leg wouldn't take that!

In the meantime, would the judge … or Tritter himself … dispatch someone to the curb and haul his reluctant, crippled and angry ass back inside?

I was in shock for a moment, speechless.

Tritter finally stepped down from the stand. But he did not make a move toward the door. Sat down instead at the prosecutor's table beside Vickers. The smirk on his face reminded me of the cat that ate the canary. The two men looked at one another like co-conspirators … and smiled. Expressions of imminent victory: they were certain they had this one locked up. In more ways than one.

The sudden exit of the defendant was deflating the judicial process, and there was a flurry of speculative conversation. The judge's chin was in her palm. She sighed, looked at her court reporter, law clerk and bailiff, and then banged the gavel.

"Recess for one hour," she declared. She rose and walked deliberately and angrily away from the bench and disappeared into chambers, slamming the heavy mahogany door behind her.

Lisa Cuddy walked back into the courtroom a few minutes later and slid across the row to my side. There was a smile on her face that trumped even the one on Tritter's.

Uh oh … 

"What's going on?" I asked. "Where's House?" I had a pretty good idea.

She nudged my shoulder and leaned closer to whisper into my ear. "He's on his way back to the hospital, I suppose. He thinks he knows what's wrong with Derek."

I frowned. "What? How? He has no transportation!"

Lisa's smile had widened to a grin, and her whisper was edged with a lilt of pure delight. "I caught up with him right outside at the curb … and I asked him the same thing. And he said …

'Tell Wilson I know where he keeps the extra key to his car … in a little magnetic box under the driver's side fender. I'm fine, Cuddy. Haven't felt this good in a long time. Go back in and tell him I'll try to bring his clunker back in one piece …'"

Cuddy was still grinning. "How can we stay pissed off at him, James? Tell me! How?"

I rolled my eyes and shrugged at the total absurdity of the situation.

Gregory House rides again!

"Damn him!"

'_Clunker'?_

_0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0 _

48


	13. Chapter 13

"The Light at the End of the Tunnel"

Chapter Thirteen

"Timescape"

He'd walked out of there like there was a bad taste in his mouth.

Looked back over his shoulder in the same manner that "Bigfoot" looked over his shoulder as he stalked off into the woods in that fuzzy amateur film we've all seen too many times.

Just like that.

_Screw you!_

And gone.

No apologies, no excuses. He just left … and to hell with the consequences.

He'd told me once … in an unguarded moment … that he'd been walking away from intolerable situations his whole life. He walked away from encounters that he thought were beneath him. Walked away from men who could not carry on an intelligent conversation without bragging about sex, cars or contact sports. Walked away from women who were clingy, giggly, possessive, or who expected more from him than he cared to give. He ran from duplicity and pretense of all kinds.

When he was a kid he'd had no choice but to walk away from friends, again and again, because the military was moving his family to another base soon. He would most likely never see those friends again. _Don't get too close! Don't let your heart get broken! _ It jaded him. It carried over into his adult life.

Later, he'd walked out on his father for being more of a drill instructor than a Dad. And to a lesser extent he'd walked out on his mother also, because she could never stand up to her husband in favor of her son.

Gregory House had been a loner from the time he was eleven years old.

I know for a fact that it carried over into his later life, because he's been my best friend forever, and he's walked out on me more times that I can count. Just as I've walked out on him.

He taught me how to turn people off if I wanted to or needed to. And I learned the lesson well. Maybe too well.

What I don't quite understand though, is why we both seem to know somehow that neither of us is quite complete without the other. We always end up working our way back to the comfort zone of this stupid, screwed-up friendship …

He's never mentioned anything about _that_ observable fact … and I'm not sure I'd want to know, even if he did.

Cuddy was saying something to me as she sat by my side. Trying to intrude into my inner thoughts. I hadn't even heard her. All I'd been aware of was a sub-vocal drone … a monotone … like a persistent bumblebee. My mind was elsewhere, chasing old memories that blinked in and out of existence and drawing me in. Not until she jiggled my arm in a quick moment of impatience did I haul my senses reluctantly back to full comprehension.

I had turned her off … completely … just as House had taught me so well.

"Ahhh … um … what?" My mind centered on her suddenly, like a telephoto lens zooming in from a very great distance.

She frowned a little. Leaned in and touched her forehead to my shoulder and sighed.

"You … were somewhere in another galaxy for a second, weren't you?"

I nodded, a little embarrassed. "Uh … yeah … sorry. I was a little concerned about the price House might have to pay for his latest little stunt. But you know there's a puzzle still out there and he had to go try to solve it …"

She nodded. Leaned over and whispered. "I was thinking about that too. Will you keep an eye on my coat and purse while I walk out in the hall? I want to call the hospital and find out what's going on over there. House's 'puzzle', as you call it, is that young fireman, and I need to check in. See if he got there okay, and what's being done to help the kid. Okay?"

I nodded. "Sure. Go ahead. I'm … not going anywhere. I'm stranded without a car. Remember?"

She smothered a display of sudden laughter and began to slide back toward the aisle. "Thanks, Wilson. You're a riot!"

I sat in the forced silence of the courtroom, a little confused, a little smug, and a little like I'd been pole-axed. Runaway emotions and images fought for control of my imagination and I wasn't sure whether to let them run rampant or gather myself and pay attention to what was happening around me.

Which was nothing. It was like time had come grinding to a halt.

Tritter and Vickers were still whispering, eyes glittering, darting about surreptitiously. The court reporter had picked up a paperback novel and was immersed in it like she hadn't a care in the world. The bailiff slouched in a jury chair, half asleep. Madison Sullivan, House's lawyer, had left the courtroom as soon as the recess had been called. He hadn't returned. Probably out doing damage control.

I looked around the courtroom, then at my watch. Fifteen minutes had passed. Forty-five to go. And if House _still_ wasn't back? I had a feeling the proverbial crap would hit the proverbial ventilation system. And he would be standing directly in front of it!

So I dropped my chin to my chest and slumped in the seat, pretending that my coccyx was not trying to drive itself straight up into the middle of my sacrum …

-xxxxxxxxxxx-

I was twenty-two. Fresh out of four years of college at McGill University in Montreal. I had spread my wings and flown. "Home" was no longer a corner bedroom in a quiet brick house on a suburban street in Trenton, New Jersey. I was no longer the "middle son" in a reserved Jewish family.

I had hundreds of brothers and sisters all around me … maybe thousands … on campus at Johns Hopkins. Baltimore was a great town for exploration, and Hopkins was one of the most prestigious universities in the nation. I was lucky to be accepted there.

My first week was completely taken up with orientation, class assignments, room assignments, gathering books and work materials. And my very own stethoscope! It was "hands-on" from day one, and slackers need not apply.

I was assigned a two-man cracker-box room in one of the dorms. My roommate was a guy from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, by the name of Richard Aubrey Dickinson. He was Jewish, like me, but there the similarities ended. Dick was of darker complexion, deep-set hazel eyes, hawk-like nose and very thin lips. He wore black horn-rimmed glasses that transformed his narrow face into that of an extremely alert and intelligent Doberman Pinscher.

Dick was my age, but looked older by at least five years. His right hand was crippled from a sledding accident as a child, and the fingers were atrophied tightly against his palm. He said it was a hand made especially for hitchhiking and the "thumbs-up" signal. I didn't laugh. He didn't expect me to. That concept understood, we were soon very good friends.

Dick was gay. His partner was a graduate student from TelAviv, temporarily in the states for further study and a master's in Psychology. Ardais Verengi-Degas often visited with us in the little dorm room, and the three of us studied together, shot the shit and drank beer or strong black coffee in-between.

When the three of us walked around campus together at that time, I was completely oblivious to the sideways glances and resentful glares I often garnered from other male students. Sometimes I wondered why I couldn't get weekend dates as easily as I had at McGill. I had never had the problem before.

But I never attributed that to the company I kept.

At first.

I admit that the going was difficult in the beginning. From the start, we were expected to go along on early morning rounds at the hospital: obediently following a group of more experienced interns and residents as they visited patients with a great variety of disorders.

Each of us was expected to offer an opinion when called upon, and the blunders we made in our ignorance were often hilarious … except when it was oneself whose head was on the chopping block.

Many of the older residents made fools of us on purpose, throwing out diagnoses and asking complicated questions we had no hope of answering. One tall, skinny resident especially, seemed to delight in making each of us look small and stupid. He had an irritating laugh that dug under my skin like a splinter beneath a fingernail, and I longed to belt him one. But of course I would never do that. I just glared and took it.

In the auditorium, during lectures, the same resident, often dressed in scrubs, would prop his lanky form in an open doorway. He would yell taunts across the large room at the fellow resident on the podium. "Just listen to yourself, Von Lieberman! Don't pay any attention to him, kiddies. He's a reject from the mechanic school down the road!" Then he would laugh and walk away.

Dick and I would look at each other and shrug. We had no idea who the hell he was.

The taunting went on for a long time; even after we began to get a little experience and weren't so glaringly dumb anymore. But the tall guy still hung in the doorway of the auditorium, yelling insults and then walking away laughing. Nobody appreciated it, but nobody ever yelled anything back at him either. We figured he was some kind of BMOC or something.

Then one day I was in the library. Sitting alone at one of the big, state-of-the-art word processors, memorizing the configurations of the human skeletal system and preparing for a test. I was getting pretty good at identifying the individual bones, but sometimes the program threw them at me out of order and out of context. You had to learn to recognize them immediately so your likelihood of future mistakes was almost nonexistent.

I was aware of footsteps behind me that day, but I guess I thought it was probably Dick or Ardais coming over to call me for supper. I hit the identity key of the display that flashed on the screen in front of me and got it completely wrong. The harsh laughter from the man behind me identified him immediately as the loudmouthed resident. I rounded on him and glared up at his impressive height.

"Don't you _ever_ shut your damned mouth, asshole?"

You just didn't say things like that to a resident. But I was angry, and I stood my ground.

He was still gaping as I swung around in my chair again to face the screen. But his hard blue eyes were luminous as they tracked me. I sat hunched, waiting for whatever was coming.

The laughter disappeared. He stepped up to the table and hit a couple other keys on the keypad. Immediately, two separate but similar bones appeared side by side on the screen. His index finger came up and pointed out the differences. "The humerus is similar at first glance," he said. "But its head is smaller and the neck is a lot shorter. Compare them side-by-side. Use the graph in the margin as a reference. Then take your time. This isn't a sprint. It's an endurance race. Okay?"

He backed up, looked as though he was about to leave. "Thanks," I said. "I'll remember that. Dr … ?"

"House," he answered. His voice was calm, soft. Not the harsh, insulting rumble I'd heard yelling across the expanse of the auditorium. "Gregory House. Remember it … it'll be famous someday. And you are … ?"

I stood up and turned to face him. "Wilson. James."

In that instant, the diabolical grin was back. "So … Wilson … James … do _your_ bat-wing doors swing both ways, or what?"

"What? What? 'Bat-wing doors'? I'm afraid I don't …"

And then it hit me. He had seen me with Dick and Ardais who were known lovers. He'd also seen me flirting with girls. He'd known who I was long before I knew who he was. He thought that I …

"Are you a little 'swishy' too?" He continued in a taunting manner.

I glared at him. "That would be like asking if I were a little bit pregnant, wouldn't it?"

"Well … _are_ you?"

"Am I what?"

"A little bit pregnant. I wouldn't want to make any moves on you if you're already taken and in a family way ..."

The look on his face was daring me. Teasing me. "You try making any moves on me, 'Future-Famous-Dr. House'," I growled, "and you'll be picking yourself off the floor!"

He snorted, turned on his heel and strode away, laughing. I heard him mutter, just loud enough that I could hear: "Yeah, yeah, yeah … you and your pink silk petticoat!"

The following evening Dick and Ardais and I were in our room, sprawled on the floor between the bunks with study materials spread in disarray all around us. I was telling them about my encounter the day before with the mouthy resident, and that I'd finally learned his name ...

Ardais looked up, his large brown eyes about half sad. He shifted his gaze from Dick's face to my own. "Well … you guys won't have to worry about 'Doctor Gregory House' harassing you any longer," he said. "Today the administration found out he's involved in some kind of cheating scandal. He's gone. He's been expelled."

Inside, I was suddenly experiencing a feeling of faint regret.

It would be almost a year before we would meet again.

-xxxxxxxx-

"This hearing will now come to order. Call Dr. Lisa Cuddy to the stand …"

The bailiff's voice from the front of the room brought me out of my reverie with a jolt. I had not heard them coming back.

The court reporter was at attention. Judge Davis was on the bench. Vickers was seated at the prosecutor's table, and Tritter was waiting smugly on the bench across from me and two rows back.

Madison Sullivan was at the defense table … alone. House had not returned.

And Lisa Cuddy was in the witness chair.

"_Oh double shit!"_

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

55


	14. Chapter 14

"The Light at the End of the Tunnel"

Chapter Fourteen

"Perjury Is As Perjury Does"

I was very conscious of sitting there holding my breath.

There was a lump that started to form in my stomach, and before I knew it, the thing was rising into my throat like a bubble through the water. Ready to choke me. I sat frozen in time; a tree in the Petrified Forest, horrified at what Cuddy might have to testify to, up there on the witness chair, in order to keep from perjuring herself.

Oh Christ! House was done for! His poor crippled ass was going to be sitting in a jail cell for the foreseeable future … and nothing anyone could do about it. He would die in there. It would be like taking a fierce wild animal out of its native habitat and penning it in a cage for the entertainment of human beings with a penchant for exerting their own superiority.

And then … just that quickly … House was back!

I found that I was able to breathe again.

He came stampeding through the door like a teenager crashing a pool party. No remorse, no regrets, no apology. He was just there. Jacket gaping, tie flapping. His uneven gait was ponderous. I could almost see the cane bending in the middle from the weight he had to place on it. But he was triumphant. His craggy face had that self-satisfied look that told me he had solved the puzzle.

Derek the fireman was out of the woods and on the mend … minus a few brain cells, but recuperating …

… and my "clunker" was probably back in the parking lot in one piece. _Probably!_ I wouldn't know for sure until I saw it for myself.

And just that quick, I was pissed off at him all over again. My relief at seeing my friend back in the courtroom, willing to face the music, was instantly replaced by unreasonable mixed emotions that best friends often feel toward one another when one doesn't live up to the exacting expectations of the other.

"Sorry," he said. "Didn't mean to interrupt." He didn't look sorry at all. Just smug.

Judge Davis raised an eyebrow, half pained, half exasperated. "I hope you don't mind that we continued on without you ..."

"Said I was _sorry_ …" The remark was thrown over his shoulder in his usual abrupt manner. "No need to be sarcastic …"

_Yeah, House … right!_

Lisa Cuddy looked up, staring at the cause of the sudden interruption in her testimony. She did not, however, seem surprised.

Vickers and Tritter had both whirled about when the door banged open and both gaped, speechless, as Gregory House continued to limp painfully to the defense table and lower himself into the chair.

House paused a moment to glance at me and check my mood … he probably caught me with my mouth hanging wide open. The smirk that played around in the deep recesses of his landscaped cheeks made me heave a sigh of relief. From the bottoms of my shoe soles and rising through my entire body, his commanding presence melted my sudden resentment into instant forgiveness for … whatever-the-hell I'd been grousing about inside my head.

_Aw House …dammit … they're gonna lock you up and throw away the key for three hundred years!_

Then I heard Cuddy say …

"He never got the pills."

There was contrived innocence on her face that only those who knew Lisa Cuddy very well could have interpreted.

Vickers was nearly apoplectic, and House's eyes were as big as saucers. I think mine were too.

"It's his signature!" Vickers insisted.

Cuddy was being a tad coy. "Dr. House did pick up a prescription, but it wasn't for oxycodone. Dr. Wilson informed me that Dr. House already tried to steal the medication

for his patient. That made it clear to me that Dr. House was in a particularly vulnerable and desperate state …"

My God! She realizes how much physical pain he was in … 

"So I went to the pharmacy and I swapped bottles. Dr. House only got a bottle of placebos."

She's lying! She's perjuring herself! For House! 

The next thing I heard her say, after the general hubbub that arose in the courtroom; everybody talking at once: "I guess I never expected it to go this far …"

Thirty seconds later it was over.

House was bound over to spend the night in jail for contempt, and the case was thrown out.

Judge Davis told him he had better friends than he deserved. He didn't argue. Even Tritter, in his calm, even manner, wished House good luck … and he hoped he'd been wrong about him.

We all knew he wasn't. Exactly. But that was neither here nor there.

House had another chance.

And the rest of us had another chance also; the chance to pause and listen to him when he tried to tell us how bad his pain was. And the chance to be there for him if he decided he could trust any of us … me, in particular … to talk to or confide in.

If he would ever allow himself to do so again. We would have to begin anew.

He was in the jail cell when we saw him next.

He'd removed the red tie, but he was on the bunk, sprawled on his back, head resting on a folded blanket, jacket and shoes still on. A bent elbow covered his eyes, but he heard us coming. Jailhouse gates have a very distinct clank and squeal to them when they open and close.

Cuddy and I stood looking in at him. He lifted his arm in a disdainful gesture and peered at us, then raised his head slightly in acknowledgment and sat up with a painful grunt. As he swung his legs over the side of the bunk, I noticed that the bum leg wasn't moving very well. He hid it deftly. They had taken his cane away again.

Cuddy was tired. She was a little put out with finding it necessary to have to lie for him.

"I'm surprised to see you're not spooning your way through the walls," she said. And she went on to tell him she owned his ass.

He did not protest, but nodded slowly in acknowledgment. Coming from him, it was the deepest form of apology he could possibly make to her, and she knew it. She left very shortly after her small tirade.

House knew I had his medication with me. When Cuddy had gone, he struggled up from the bunk and hobbled over to the bars to face me. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the envelope with the pills, thrust it through the bars.

House reached out quickly. Opened the small brown envelope and dumped the meds into his palm. Throwing his head back, he gulped them as a starving man gobbles tidbits …

"That's … that's _Vicodin!"_

He conceded that it was. Voldemort had been smuggling it to him every day from the time he'd entered rehab. House was paying him well.

My heart sank.

"And nothing's changed?"

He shook his head and admitted calmly: "Nothing's changed."

I wanted to leave. Run. Let him sit and rot. Again. I turned away, hands over my face.

Tritter had said to me the night in my hotel room: "Have you ever trusted an addict?"

I had to think about that question at that moment. House was _not_ an addict! He wasn't! He was a "cripple" … his description … who was dependent on drugs to control chronic pain. I had to remember that there was a difference. This was my best friend. He'd once told me: "I never lie!"

Oh yeah he did. But not about this.

I turned back and stared him in the face. "The apology … you didn't need to do that to make this work."

He almost smiled. Came very close. I could see it hiding there in the depths of his eyes. "Believe what you want!"

I stood looking at him. What was he trying to tell me?

He was trying to tell me that we both needed to apologize. He _did_ need to let me know that he didn't blame me for all the hard times I'd given him … all the grumbling and cajoling and growling I'd done. He was saying that he understood what I meant, and I had been pleading, in essence: "Let me help! Won't you let me help you find a way to defeat the pain?"

I calmed down. I turned around and looked him in the eye again. He was sitting on the edge of the bunk, fighting that private misery and waiting for the meds to kick in enough to let him serve out his night in jail.

I knew he would go back to rehab … get on with the damn charade.

We were of a mind.

I said, "Good night, House … see ya tomorrow."

"G'night, Wilson."

The guard was waiting at the end of the corridor to let me out of the cellblock. The metal gate clanged open, but I paused a second to look back at House.

I saw my friend turn over onto his side in an effort to find a comfortable position on the narrow bunk. His right hand was on his painful thigh again, seeking to ease it.

His left hand was half under the grey blanket that cradled his head. Just before I walked out, a flash of red appeared, a length of silky material wrapped around the fingers of that left hand.

Emerging into the brisk afternoon air, I walked across to the parking lot to reclaim my "clunker", still by some miracle in one piece. I opened the driver's door and saw the extra key and the little magnetic container lying conspicuously on the passenger seat.

Another way he had of not saying "thank you".

I grinned to myself and started the engine to return to the hospital. I still had charting to do if I were to get away from there at any kind of decent hour tonight.

And House was playing some kind of obscure game with the red necktie again. I was at a loss.

What the hell is he up to? At least he's never boring! 

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

59


	15. Chapter 15

"The Light at the End of the Tunnel"

Chapter Fifteen

"Whimsy on a Winter's Night"

I rode up to my office, went inside and locked the door.

Closed the vertical blinds on either side of it. Made a cocoon of my personal space; the closest thing in this world I have to a home.

Pulled my tie loose and away. Stuffed it into my jacket pocket and opened the two top buttons of my shirt. Slid out of the jacket, hung it on the back of the chair and rolled up my sleeves. Instant Sloppy Joe.

By the time late afternoon sneaked up on me and shadows lengthened outside the balcony door, I had turned on the desk lamp and dug further into my active files. Catching up on the charting I'd neglected for so long was taking awhile. I reached again to the hard-copy pile and picked up another folder. It was Willow Ann Johnson's. There was a hand-written note attached. Willow Ann had died this morning while I was across town, occupied with other things. I put the note down and buried my face in my hands.

Wondering "what it all meant" did not change the facts. It was dusk and the shadows outside were gone, replaced by a pocket of darkness that made a soft grotto of the balcony between House's office and this one. My desk lamp painted a halo-like bull's eye on the surface of the desk, and across the top edges of the remaining materials scattered there.

I drew a deep breath and let it out through billowed cheeks. Accept the things you cannot change! I had writers' cramp and I was starving to death. And life went on. I hadn't had anything to eat or drink … except one vinegary cup of vending machine coffee … since breakfast at the hotel this morning. It had been a long time since I'd voluntarily spent this many solid hours on anything so deeply work-related …

… except vague regrets for a woman who'd died under my care. And House.

Just that quickly, he was back in my head; stirring around with a stick, making me wonder how he was doing. Had he awakened from his late afternoon nap? Probably. He would have required additional meds long before this. I knew he'd been sore and in one of his habitual concealment modes when I'd left him at the jail and come back here.

I got up from my desk and shuffled stiffly into the little bathroom, debating whether to shower now, or go back and do it at the hotel later. Not sure. I'd think about it. When I finished, I washed up and dried my hands on a wad of paper towels.

I returned to my desk and sat for a time, trying to clear my mind of everything related to the hospital. I pushed the chair back into the niche between the credenza and the wall, leaned my head into the side and rubbed the grit from my eyes. Lights were coming on along the street and on the hospital grounds. It had been a long, stress-filled day.

Did I say that I cleared my head of everything concerned with the hospital?

Ha ha! Liar! 

_House_ … the one human being who embodies the concept of this damn old hospital … more than all the cement and concrete and marble and brick and glass and steel and mortar … and all of us mere mortals. You can't take Albert Einstein out of science, or Ernest Hemingway out of modern literature … and you sure-as-hell can't take the legend that is Gregory Houseout of Princeton-Plainsboro …

I wondered if anyone was in the DDx room. I was hungry, but was not about to call down to the cafeteria if any of the fellows were still hanging around. That idea had brought unexpected and unwanted consequences the last time. I pushed out of the chair and walked over to the balcony door. All the blinds were pulled closed over there, but if anyone still lingered, there would have been light showing between the slats. It was dark. As dark as _his_ office!

I went back to the desk and punched the number of the Caff. Ordered a bowl of broccoli soup, a toasted cheese sandwich and the biggest container they had of unsweetened iced tea with mint and lemon. Cassie at the cash register said it would be sent up with one of the bus boys in about fifteen minutes. The bill came to five dollars and thirty cents. I dug eight dollars out of my wallet and laid it flat on the desk, placed the edge of the phone on it.

I walked over and unlocked the office door, then returned to the desk one more time and sat down. A niggle of pain tricked in and out at my temples with every beat of my heart, and I hoped it wasn't the start of a migraine. I turned off the desk lamp, leaned forward and rested my head in my hands, elbows propped between the scattered piles of folders.

It was six in the evening now, and completely dark outside. Street and parking lot lights did their nightly spotlight dance across the brick walls. Some of it spread over the cold concrete trim, and on up to where the illumination from the fifth floor spilled outward across what was left of the snow still packed against the windowsills and panes.

I thought about going up to check on House … see if there was anything he needed and find out how he was faring on the institutional furniture, and on the hard, uncomfortable bunk. But I knew I wouldn't do it. Outside visits during evening hours had to be few and far between. They had AA/NA meetings every night, and spirited discussion groups afterward. My curiosity wasn't reason enough to justify bothering him.

It was up to him now. I had to let him alone to find his way. He had to discover a means of putting what he learned in group therapy to good use for his own situation … even though he was the biggest "cheat" up there.

He had to utilize things he gleaned from others like him … even though the others weren't _quite_ like him … and begin to build himself a bank account with them. Every time he heard good ideas or good words … or just something positive that he could apply to his own life … he had to "bank" them in his memory account like they were real money.

When there were enough positive ideas invested, he could gradually replace the negative things he had been living with for so long. "Fake it 'til you make it," AA members said. When he hit a rough spot, he could withdraw from his bank account of positive stuff to tide him through the pain and the difficulties of the negative. At least that's the way they saw it. And they ought to know.

Gregg used to mention abstract stuff like that to me sometimes in the days before the infarction. It had been like a game to him then. "Keep the good stuff you learn … and dump the bullshit!" His words. I wondered if he would remember. He had never mentioned it again after he was left with a crippled leg and a stolen life. But a steel-trap mind like his retains _everything!_

A light knock on the door brought me quickly out of my self-imposed trance. I sat up and combed the goofy look off my face. "It's open," I said. "Come on in."

It was the kid with my food.

Redheaded, bespectacled, skinny, and decked out in a white slop uniform, he elbowed the handle and backed inside with the tray. "Hi, Dr. Wilson," he said brightly. "Got your supper. Comes to $5.30."

I nodded and lifted my phone off the eight bucks. "Hi Lewis," I said. "Here ya go … keep the change."

He set the tray down on the desk; right on top of the files I'd been working on. "Thanks a lot, Dr. Wilson. Soup's hot," he said. "Don't let it cool down or it'll taste like library paste." He winked and turned. Laid a touch of the obscure on me: "Later, p'tater …"

I played along. "U-2, Lew …" and he was gone. The door clicked shut behind him.

I ate slowly, savoring every bite. The broccoli soup was delicious; the grilled cheese sandwich was made from provolone, my favorite. Cash Register Cassie must have clued the cook. After a short time the threatening headache began to subside.

Oh Ho! 

The cold, strong, dewy, unsweetened minty iced tea hit the spot. I savored its delicious bite for another hour as the ice melted and moisture gathered on the outside of the glass. I finished up my charting and cleared away the mess. Time to go home.

Home … what a joke! 

I rolled my sleeves down but didn't button them … kinda House-like. Put my jacket back on, but not the tie … also kinda House-like. I shouldered into the black overcoat and buttoned it up. Sighed like the weight of the world was on my shoulders.

I lifted the strap of my briefcase and slung it over my shoulder, picked up the tray, plate, soup bowl and spoon. I turned the bolt on the door and stepped into the corridor. Things were quiet and the place was in night-mode. I dropped off the tray and dishes at the Caff, and continued out to my car.

"_Clunker"._

It was a clear evening. Cold and crisp and breezy. The stars were out like little jewels high in the sky. A bright sliver of moon hooked one pointed edge near the steady glow of Venus. Beautiful. The longer I stared, the more I could see of the rest of the moon, reclining like a wraith within its own shadow … gleaming there, a spectre in my gaze.

Like House. Most of the time you only saw part of him. But if you looked hard enough, long enough, the whole man gradually emerged into the afterglow. When he consented to allow the rest of him to shine within his own reflection, the sight was enough to dazzle you. And sometimes … sometimes … he made me feel like the planet Venus: hooked for eternity on his sharpest edge.

My eyes finally dropped away from the sky and centered on the peaks and slopes of the fifth floor roof. He was up there. Fighting to get back some semblance of a life. Fighting to rediscover the part of himself that had been obscured by shadow for a long, long time.

I got into the clunker and drove back to the _Drake._

I showered in water as hot as I could stand it, and for the first time in weeks, slept like a baby … straight through 'til morning.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

63


	16. Chapter 16

"The Light at the End of the Tunnel"

Chapter Sixteen

"Altercation"

We all left him alone until Sunday.

On Sunday afternoons, friends and relatives who still cared about their addicted "others" were invited to come to an hour-long open AA/NA meeting. There would be a speaker from a local group who had accumulated at least one year of back-to-back sobriety. This person would stand in front of the group and tell his or her story. They called it a "Drunkalogue". Basically, the premise consisted of: What it was like, What happened, and What it's like now.

At the conclusion of the meeting there would be another hour of refreshments and discussion. Friends and family members could go off to a private corner with the rehab patient of significance.

There, under supervision, they could renew acquaintances, reaffirm a lost love that had been torn apart by drugs or alcohol or both. In short, begin to make amends to each other for past hurts.

I knew Allison and Lisa were going to the meeting and staying afterward for the chance to talk to House. "Gregg". No one used last names in the program.

I wasn't sure about Robert or Eric. They had both held back and exhibited a strange reluctance when I asked them about it. They were a little afraid that interacting with House in a vulnerable position, other than for professional purposes, would jade them in working with him later. I could see their point, sort of, but my overall opinion of the reluctance was that they were just plain chicken. However, I didn't say so.

Lisa was going there for the chance to learn more about drug addiction and alcoholism, and the opportunity to offer encouragement to a respected colleague. Plus … she loved him. Pure and simple. Always had. Always would.

Allison had deeper motives. Not nefarious ones of course, but she wanted to fix him. Repair what was wrong and shine him up with boot polish or the like. Something that would make him adore her and sweep her off her feet and carry her away to "happily ever after" … wherever the hell that was.

Her efforts were bound to fail. He had made that clear often enough. He was tantalized by her beauty and brains, but weary of her reluctance to tell patients the truth if the news was bad, and "up-to-here" with her feminine schemes and persistent immaturity.

He wouldn't mind "having a piece of that", as he'd said many times, but he was twenty years her senior, and what he "had" couldn't be "fixed".

I decided to wait until that evening to go checking up on him. On a Sunday evening I would not have to edit my thoughts or my words in front of others.

Being a fellow physician has great advantages sometimes. He had blown smoke in my face when I'd first visited him in the evening. He'd consulted on Derek's case with his entire staff one evening … and I'd presented him with the red necktie the same evening after everyone else had left. I'd stayed away evenings after that, but not tonight.

Voldemort would let me in at any hour I decided to show up, because he knew I was House's best friend and his prescribing physician. I was influential and I knew his big secret. His low-wage job would be out the window … and him along with it!

I left my office about noon on Sunday. Practically sneaked out of there. I stopped by Taco Bell for takeout, and then changed into old clothes and lounged around in my hotel room the rest of the day. Watched part of a NASCAR race and fell asleep with the remote in my hand and my belly full of junk food. House would have been proud.

I hadn't wanted to be anywhere around when Lisa and Allison trekked to the fifth floor.

I did not wish to be questioned why I was not attending the open meeting in support of him. They wouldn't have understood my answer. I was not even sure I understood it myself.

Actually, I wanted to quiz him about the cat-and-mouse game with the red necktie. What in hell was he up to, and how was he expecting me to respond?

Sometimes when I see things that puzzle me, and there is no ready explanation, I find myself composing scenarios inside my head. "What if it's this?" "What if it's that?" Over time, I have found that most of the "what-ifs" are wrong. But that doesn't keep me from dreaming them up. And this time I had dreamed up quite a few.

I awoke about five in the afternoon and it was already beginning to get dark around the edges. I'd been dreaming for real. Dumb stuff.

House's cane hand … bloody … soiling the sleeve of his shirt. The red necktie was wrapped around it as a makeshift bandage. When I looked down at myself, my corresponding hand was cut and bleeding as well, but I had no necktie with which to bandage it. I was slowly bleeding out all over the bedspread. House lay beside me, grinning up at me like an idiot.

My stomach was also thinking about regurgitating my order of hot wings and French fries. The dream had made me a little nauseous.

_Oh man!_

I lay quietly on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, still lounging in an old McGill tee shirt, blue jeans and a dirty pair of running shoes, sans socks. If I went to visit House in rehab dressed like this, I thought, at least I'd fit in.

I watched the sun sink below the rooftops for another fifteen minutes, purposely relaxing my limbs and not moving any more than absolutely necessary. Just breathing in … breathing out. Trying to encourage my stomach to digest the garbage I'd put into it a few hours earlier. I was getting too old for this!

I checked my hands. First the backs, then the palms. They were fine. My stomach was slowly settling … thinking about doing as it was told.

House had always seemed to thrive on junk food, and never seemed to get sick. How the hell did he do it? His stomach must be lined with lead. If he could scarf God-knew-how-many Vicodin tablets in a day, a dozen hot wings and a pile of French fries were nothing! Add to that a couple of beers or a couple glasses of Scotch … the man had the constitution of Robbie the Robot!

-xxxxxxxx-

It was 4:30 in the afternoon.

The McDaniel Wing on the fifth floor of PPTH was very quiet.

Too quiet!

The AA/NA meeting, which had convened at one o'clock and broke up a little after three, was long over, all guests cleared out and gone home.

Gregory House, irritated and hurting badly, perched alone on the edge of a long couch beneath a window at the eastern wall. He sat forward, hunched over, his beard once again lengthening against the sunken pallor of his face. His clothing hung on him and he looked like a scarecrow. He was angry, sore and discouraged. Rehab was a total pain in his ass, and he swore to God, half the idiots who were stuck here with him … just simply didn't _get it!_

He stretched his leg in front of him, easing the tension in the damaged muscle and laying his palm to the scar to calm some of the fire. It wasn't working. The small amounts of Vicodin he'd been able to extort from Voldemort were not enough to take the edge off, or calm it to the point where he was able to sit still for more than a short parade of minutes.

Rapping the tip of his cane in a restless tattoo on the floor in front of him as a flimsy means of distraction, he glanced around the mostly empty room. Anything to take his mind off the tension that gripped him.

Other patients had retreated to small conversational groups, waiting for supper at five. The only other guy in the immediate vicinity was a bald, fat slob parked in a chair all the way across at the opposite wall. "John Q. Somebody" had been there a day at most. A newbie. House knew the man was a court case, sent here under protest by a judge after beating the shit out of his wife and trashing his house.

During the meeting earlier, John Q. had sat in a corner like a bump on a log and stared a "thousand-yard-stare" and bit his fingernails. They were probably detoxing the fuck out of him! The hairs on the nape of House's neck were standing on end. The wild-eyed dude was still sitting there, shivering like a dog shitting bones. No one had visited him or even spoken to him, during or after the meeting. House could feel the hostility deep in his bones.

John Q's eyes darted around the room in fear-filled suspicion, and his sweat exuded the strong odor of desperate fury. House's diagnostic eye had declared "DTs", but his pounding leg commanded his attention soon after that, with no regard for anything else.

One therapist and two attendants on duty were positioned along the room's periphery and in the kitchen area, preparing supper and silently monitoring a compliment of nearly twenty patients. They were expected to serve the evening meal in a very short time.

Much earlier in the day, House had sighed in exasperation when, at five minutes until one o'clock, just as everyone rose for the Serenity Prayer, Lisa Cuddy and Allison Cameron walked in the door. Both looked around brightly to see where and how he was.

He remembered cringing inwardly.

_Oh crap!_

Both had smiled sweetly and waggled their fingers in greeting before finding seats, and he wanted to drop right through the floor. Thank God he was on the other side of the room far away from them, and most of the available seats were already taken. He made himself as small as possible. To be seen sedentary and in pain by either of them was unendurable.

That's all he needed … for Cameron to look over at him with sorrowful, cuddly kitten eyes and search for places about his person where he might be bruised … or smarting … or bleeding out his ears or eyes … and reach out to touch him in compassion …

Christ! 

Cuddy he didn't mind so much. Cuddy was "old school" and pity was foreign to her, thank God! She had seen him, after all, with all his clothes off. More than once! A couple of those times on purpose. He might have welcomed her. She could have distracted him from the pain … if Cameron hadn't been present … in honor of the good times!

After the meeting was over and they approached him … and the stupid questions asked, and the dumb offers of fan magazines and red lollipops … and his small efforts to make nice in return … but no thank you … they left.

_Jesus!_

When they finally took the hint and got the hell out of there before he climbed the walls, he found himself so tense, and his muscles so rigid, that he wanted to scream and shout and bang his fists on the pretty paneling until they broke right through. Then there would be hell to pay, and maybe some "real" blood for Cameron to swoon over!

Now, he flinched as a spike of pain centered in his thigh, above the knee. His cane flew from his hand and clattered to the floor.

Across the room, Fat Ass was already off the chair and halfway across the open space between them. He was drooling; he was crying, he was blubbering and half incoherent. One thing was for sure: his brain was fried enough to make him homicidal.

"You fucking dirty rotten sonnovabitch … you dunno what the hell you have! Some of us got nothin' … _nothin'!"_ He was screaming, his voice high-pitched and cracking, his brain drowning, going down for the third time under too many years of bad attitude and bad booze.

House had no chance to react to the impending threat. He was coping with the intensity of his pain. Both hands were cradling his leg now, his face contorted, and a moan escaped from between his lips despite anything he could have done to suppress it.

Surprisingly agile for such a leviathan, the fat man scooped up the dropped cane, and with a bellow of rage, turned it on House with all his considerable strength.

Gregg took the hit across his back, near the middle of his right shoulder blade. Too late, he had seen it coming and twisted his body to the left. The big guy reared back again and held the cane like a baseball bat, meaning to rain down another punishing blow. He growled deep in his throat and let loose with the second round.

This time, however, House was ready. His shoulder hurt like a MoFu, but he would not be hit again. He pushed off the edge of the couch with the powerful muscles of his left leg, balanced himself and let fly with a clumsy roundhouse punch that caught the fat man on his left temple, just above his ear. Gregg's bad leg twisted beneath him and he fell onto his right side against the arm of the couch. His knee hit the end table.

Fat Ass lay spread-eagled on the floor, sobbing, with both hands cradling his head. The cane had taken flight again, this time ricocheting off another table, knocking down a lamp and landing somewhere underneath another couch. House scrambled away from the man, pushing up with both hands and hanging there, seeking to regain some small balance on his side, inviting the idiot to try it again.

"You sonnovabitch!" The fat man was crying, cursing and groaning at the same time. "You dirty prick! You had two fuckin' visitors today … beautiful women … and you stand around like some kind of shit freak and don't hardly talk to 'em! An' my wife says she don't care if she never sees me again as long as she lives. An' there you sit … like a jerk … bangin' that fuckin' cane on the floor!"

He was slobbering now, snot and tears running down his mottled face. "Sweet Jesus! You got bugs crawlin' outa your ears … an' I'm goin' outa my head …"

House stared, half grossed out. Acute alcoholism was not pretty. He slid around toward the man and stared at him. DTs … confirmed! Behind him, Voldemort and the two other counselor-attendants were moving in from the kitchen, but approaching cautiously. Every conversation in the large room had stilled. Silence resounded. 

"What the hell's going on in here?"

House had not the strength to reply. He glared up at one of them, then another, and then the third. His right hand hung limply at his side and he hissed through his teeth. His body slumped further across the floor as he squirmed back to the couch where he'd been sitting before the ruckus.

He raised himself slowly to sit down, avoiding the use of his injured right side, and hitched a tortured breath. "My cane's under the couch over there. Will one of you … _please_ … get it for me? Right now I'm about as ambulatory as a fish out of water …"

It was a small-bodied woman who sank to her knees and looked under the couch. She retrieved the cane and started toward House.

"Hold it!" Voldemort said. He watched closely as the fat guy hefted himself off the floor and retreated to his neutral corner with the third attendant at his side. Everyone had seen or heard part of the altercation. House's left hand clamped onto his right shoulder. He was in severe pain, and a quiet hiss escaped him, even as his face reddened with the effort to contain it.

The woman with the cane stopped and looked toward her boss, questioning.

Other patients were beginning to crowd around the edges of the room. Their curious whispers were not supporting, and their glittering eyes were eager to see if there might still be a bloodletting …

Voldemort took the cane from the woman attendant and held it up where everyone could see it. "This is going away, ladies and gentlemen. Weapons are not allowed in rehab. It looks to me as though you both have some amends to make tomorrow morning in group therapy."

House looked up, furious, speaking through clenched teeth. "How the hell am I supposed to walk?"

Voldemort shrugged. "We'll get you a wheelchair. How's your shoulder?"

The glare from House's eyes was murderous.

"I'm fine!" He snarled.

-xxxxxxxx-

When I walked into rehab a little after 7:30 p.m., the lights were low and the room was bathed in shadow. A few patients were lounging around in PJs and bathrobes. Two women sat in conversation on one of the couches, but I didn't see House. I wondered if he might be lying down in his quarters again.

A little worried, I fingered the tiny glass bottle from my medical case that I'd slipped into my jeans pocket just before leaving the hotel.

Then my eyes adjusted to the gloom and I spotted him. His back was turned toward me, and something about his posture made me frown. There was a light blanket that trailed over his shoulders and down his back. His entire body was canted slightly to the left. Not natural.

He had not seen me. I walked closer, my heart rising to my throat as I approached.

He was in a wheelchair; its right leg rest raised by half. I hurried to him and knelt quickly by his side. He turned, startled at my approach, and looked at me. His eyes were like pale chimney smoke; bleak and haunted. His right arm was in a sling. His voice was faint, but ragged with desperation.

"Wilson … thank God … you've got to get me the fuck out of here!"

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

71


	17. Chapter 17

"The Light at the End of the Tunnel"

Chapter Seventeen

"The Marvel of a Clean Escape"

I crouched beside him and placed my hand tentatively on the arm of the chair. "Are you all right?"

He frowned and glared at me, then let the planes of his face morph the frown into the beginnings of a smirk. "Do I _look_ like I'm, all right? I got my ass kicked this afternoon, and you want to know if I'm all right?"

I didn't know how to answer him. I wanted to touch him the way friends do sometimes, in reassurance and support. But he'd already lifted his arm up and away from the armrest when I'd placed my hand upon it. He wanted and expected no support, no sympathy, and certainly no pity.

I straightened up and moved over to the edge of the couch directly across from him. He looked, more than anything, empty. Empty of reason, empty of emotion, empty of hope. He was wearing a set of grey sweats beneath the grey blanket thrown over his shoulders, and a pair of thick grey socks on his feet. No slippers, no shoes. "House … what happened to you? Did you fall? Did someone else hurt you? Trip you? Did they call someone to come up and check your arm? Talk to me!"

He wouldn't look at me. Just sat and stared at the floor for a long time. For a while I thought I had lost him to some deep, faraway darkness.

Finally: "Some stupid fuck with DTs hit me on the shoulder with my own cane. I put his lights out. They called Ortho, and Norm Lyons came up here and checked my shoulder awhile ago. Nothing's broken. Just bruised. Twisted hell out of my leg. He checked that too.

"I'll live. They took away my cane and locked it up like it's a weapon. So I'm stuck in this damned thing. You gotta get me the hell out of here! I've had about all of this place I can take …"

I stared at him, and his anger radiated from his body in waves that were almost palpable.

"What about the rest of your rehab? You've only been here a week."

"Yeah?" His eyes raised gradually until they were on a level with my own. "Well, that's a week too fuckin' long. I'm not _like _them, Wilson. I need to be out of here. I need to be home! You want to help me? Or not?"

Something deep in my mind nagged me about reminding him of his mental bank account, about the deposits for the lean times ahead. But the hell with it! I wanted this friendship to survive more than he needed to sit around up here, injured and probably minimizing it, with no distractions and no puzzles to solve. No staff to harass. I knew it and he knew it.

"When I get you to your place, will you be able to walk inside on your own? A bad right shoulder kinda screws up your use of the cane …"

He stared at me, the penetrating blue eyes going right through to my soul. Then he sighed with relief, knowing he had a willing ally. "There's wheelchair ramps in the trunk of my car …"

And his car was in the hospital parking lot where it had been since the morning he'd walked into the elevator and ferried himself to the fifth floor.

He saw my nod, but I was on my feet too fast for him to spot the tears that sprang to my eyes. He couldn't walk, was scared to try, but not admitting that. _Never _admitting that!

Voldemort was in the dining area having a heated discussion with three patients sitting at one of the tables with a deck of cards spread out before them. I heard him say: "Get rid of those!"

"You think you're big enough to make me?" One of them sneered.

"You're here to get clean and sober … not play games. Those go into the trash, or you're all out of here on your freakin' asses, and your misery is cheerfully refunded!" He swept the cards from the table into a meaty paw and proceeded to tear them in half, six or seven at a time. The three men scraped back from the table and walked away in disgust.

Voldemort looked up and saw me. He threw the ruined cards in the trashcan and cocked his head at me. "Anything I can do for you, Dr. Wilson?"

I nodded. "I'm taking Dr. House out of here."

The man's eyes widened. "Gregg's not hurt that bad, Doc. He'll be fine in a couple of days. Worried about the cane? I had to lock it up. Some of them see it as a weapon."

I nodded. "Yeah, I know. Get it out from wherever you have it. I'm going to get his coat and shoes out of his room. I'm taking him home. Right now."

Voldemort shifted his weight and stared at me. "Not sure you oughta do that, Doc. He's not ready. Dr. Brenneman has to sign him out … and he won't be here until morning …"

"House signed himself in," I said. "He can sign himself out. Now! Give him the papers while I go get his things. You can have someone send the rest of his stuff down to his office tomorrow. Right now he needs to be home and in his own bed. You're messing around with a disabled man who just got assaulted with his own cane. He needs rest and time to recuperate … "

I turned on my heel and walked away. Across the wide expanse of the dayroom, House's eyes followed me all the way down the hallway. I could almost feel two burn holes in the middle of my back as I walked.

I put his sneakers on his feet for him and tied them loosely. I helped him into his jacket, but did not attempt to thrust his right arm into the sleeve. I wrapped it about his shoulder instead. It amused and puzzled me when I found the damned necktie rolled up in one of the pockets. I'd begun to think of it as some kind of subtle guessing game on his part. Maybe a continuation of the clumsy apologies we'd begun a week ago, and then shut up about when I told him how unfamiliar the words had sounded.

He was playing with me. I kind of hoped he would have the strength to continue. It was a positive sign.

I held the discharge papers steady on the clipboard for him while he signed them, then handed it back to Voldemort. House clasped his cane tightly across his lap. I pulled the warm blanket close about his shoulders, went behind the wheelchair and pushed it out of there.

A few patients watched us from the couches and chairs around the room. They did not say goodbye or wish him well. Their supper was late, and he was the reason why.

House wasn't the only one glad to get the hell out of there.

Subsidized despair … 

He was right about that too!

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

73


	18. Chapter 18

"The Light at the End of the Tunnel"

Chapter Eighteen

"All the Comforts of Home"

I took him all the way down to the lobby in the wheelchair and he did not open his mouth once. I didn't press him one way or the other. If he wanted to talk, he knew I would certainly listen.

It was a little after six in the evening and the lights were dimmed in Cuddy's office.

She was not there. Even busy administrators merited time off once in awhile. She had probably gone home after the AA meeting this afternoon.

I had no idea whether news of this latest little incident with House would reach her quickly or not … assuming Voldemort was sharp enough to have given her a call after we left. I hoped not. House needed time to take a deep breath, rest and regroup. Cuddy's job as Chief Administrative Officer did not extend to the rehab anyway, which was a separate entity under the Bureau of Alcohol and Drugs.

I thought briefly about paging her to let her know about House's current status, but he must have been reading my mind when I slowed down a bit passing her office. "Keep going!"

"House, she's our boss. She needs to know what's going on with you. I'm probably in enough trouble just by taking you out of here."

"No you're not!" He growled. "Like you said awhile ago … I signed myself in … I signed myself out. I wasn't dragged there by Tritter or his lackeys. Not this time. I went voluntarily. I'm leaving voluntarily. Don't even slow this contraption down!"

We left by the main entrance and walked through a couple dozen people waiting for visiting hours in the lobby, and others heading toward us like animated ice cubes from the parking lot. House looked neither to the right nor to the left, nor did I. It was cold and the wind was blowing. He kept his head down. I picked up the pace. My feet were already freezing, and I supposed his were too.

I helped him struggle out of the chair and settle himself clumsily into the front seat of the Volvo. I opened the trunk, collapsed the chair and shoved it inside. I started the engine and turned on the heater, then walked over to his handicap stall and opened the trunk of the old Dynasty.

There were two metal wheelchair ramps tossed inside like someone had stood about ten feet back and heaved them in there. I lifted them out, telescoped them down until they were as small as they would go, slammed the trunk closed and hurried back to the Volvo. Laid them in beside the wheelchair and lowered the lid.

When I got in beside him, the heater was throwing warm air and he was hunched forward with both hands held out to catch some of the heat.

"Cold?" I asked.

"Yeah. Cold and tired. I hurt like a sonnovabitch. Let's just get the hell away from here, can we?"

"Sure." I backed out of the parking space and swung out of the lot, heading south toward his lonely little dump on Baker Street. He was going to be a handful tonight. With his leg giving him extra grief and a new injury to his shoulder as well, it was not going to be a pleasant night for either of us.

Traffic was light on this Sunday evening, and we were in front of his place about ten minutes later. Baker Street wasn't lit as well as downtown. I knew I must be careful in getting him settled back into the wheelchair, setting up the ramps out front and maneuvering him inside.

To my surprise, House was unusually silent and cooperative. He switched the cane to his left hand and grunted with effort as I helped him to slide out the car's passenger side and hobble painfully the few steps back to the chair. I set the ramps against the front steps onto his stoop and turned the chair around so the big wheels would line up exactly.

The sidewalk in front of 221B was fairly level and I was able to mount the two steps and pull the chair … and him … after me with little effort. The single step to the inside was low and easily transversed. I left him in the hallway for a moment, gathered the ramps again and set them off to the side where he usually parked the Honda.

He was hunched forward in the wheelchair by the time I got him into his apartment. He grasped the armrests with both hands, obviously fighting pain that he had no intention of acknowledging. I kneed the front door closed and started down the hallway toward his bedroom.

"Where are you taking me?"

"To bed."

"No! I'm fine. Take me back to the couch!"

"Not a chance. You're going to bed … and I'll throttle you to put you there if I have to."

"My place … my couch … my call!" His voice came on stronger, full of determination.

"Not this time, House. You need to be checked over, and since you asked for my help, I'm the one who's gonna take care of it. I could have left you sitting up there on your ass and walked away, you know. Thanks to me, you're out of there … and now it's _my_ call."

By the time I'd said everything I wanted to say, we had turned the corner into his large bedroom. I halted the chair beside his bed and turned it around so he would have to face me. I put on the brake. He glared at me with his lower jaw jutted out to the side, but he said nothing. I could imagine the plethora of sarcastic remarks piling up inside that nimble brain. "Do you need to use the toilet before we start this?"

He glared menacingly. "Start _what?"_

"Weren't you listening? I said I was going to check you. We can do it now, or do it later. Up to you."

He turned his face away. Found something of great interest beside the headboard of his big bed. His jaw was still jutted, and now clenched. I waited.

Finally: "Yeah. I need to go to the head. Just how the hell do you propose we handle this? Voldemort's a helluva lot bigger than you are."

"Voldemort," I replied with amusement, "is a dump truck. He gets in his own way and rattles a lot. I, on the other hand, am an F-250. Streamlined and full of subtle power. I can handle your skinny ass with one hand tied behind my back. Wanna try me?"

He snorted, faintly. "Not interested in a pissing contest, Wilson. Just help me to the shitter … and then to bed. I hurt, and I'm not in the mood for a debate."

I had already pulled the blanket away from his shoulders and tossed it, and his cane, onto the bed. I followed it with the old jacket, lifting it off his mistreated shoulder and pulling the sleeve off his other arm. He still had the plastic medical bracelet on his wrist. I left his sneakers on his feet for now and held out my arm to assist him to stand.

He stared at me warily for a moment, then grasped my elbow and heaved up. His weak arm fell forward in the sling and dangled impotently. He hissed a breath between his teeth. We paused. I did not hurry him. He knew what he could handle, and how fast he could handle it. I let him take his time.

His leg seemed to have recovered minimally, and the limp was no worse than it usually was when, for whatever reason, he needed to walk a short distance without the cane. We moved slowly into the bathroom. "Help me get the sling off," he said. "You are _not_ gonna pull my goddamn pants down for me!"

I chuckled, but made no further comment. He seemed to be feeling a little better. "Home" can sometimes be the most marvelous remedy. I unhooked the clip on the sling and removed it. He stood propped on the wall between tub and toilet glaring at me expectantly. So I shrugged and retreated to his bedroom, pulling the bathroom door closed behind me.

While he was in there, I took off my coat and laid it on the bed beside the grey blanket and his ratty peacoat. I took out my cell phone and called Harold at the Downtown Deli, placed an order for delivery and hung up. I toed off my old sneakers and flexed my bare toes. The rug beneath my feet felt warm and soft and wonderful. It was toasty in House's place and I was beginning to thaw out. I supposed that he was too.

He was in there for nearly five minutes before he finally called me to come back. When I went in, he had managed to get to the sink to wash his hands. His right hip rode the rim of the bowl and his hands still dripped with water. "I'm ready for bed now, Mommy," he groused. "Can we go now?"

"I aim to please," I said, reaching out my arm for him to grasp. He took it in stubborn silence and we walked together to his bed. He sank down on the edge weakly, and I stooped to unlace his sneakers and draw his feet out of them one at a time. "Don't turn around yet. I want you to take your sweatshirt off and let me look at that shoulder. You knew I wasn't about to let you get away with anything, right?"

He looked up, jaw still set. "Yes, Mommy." It was as close to an insult as he was capable of conjuring at the moment.

I ignored him, reaching out to take the left sleeve and tug at it, encouraging him to remove his arm. He did so, bending forward to avoid putting pressure on the injured side. He kept his face downcast, allowing me no chance to read any expression of discomfort. Which in itself told me more than he wanted me to know.

We did not speak. He knew what was expected of him and he allowed me to pull the waistband of the shirt up and over his head, along with the empty sling. It slid down across his shoulder and off the right arm into a puddle on the floor. "Lean forward a little more, can you?"

He did as I asked and I bent over to peer at his shoulder blade.

_Ouch!_

"No wonder it hurts," I said. "There's a perfect red and purple imprint of your cane, extending from about the fifth vertebrae all the way to the rim of the scapula." I touched the area lightly and felt him draw a quick breath. "There's a little swelling there, but I don't think it's too serious. Did you duck?"

He glared at me again. He's very good at that. "Whaddaya mean, 'did I duck?' _Of course I ducked!_ But he got me anyhow. Am I black and blue? Feels like my arm is about to drop off."

"Your arm," I scoffed, "seems to be hooked on pretty solid. It looks like somebody colored your skin with magic markers … but that'll go away soon enough. Don't think your arm is going to fall off and go rolling down the hall. How high can you lift it?"

He brought his hand off the surface of the bed, but was unable to lift it higher than waist level. "Ow! Fuck!"

"Guess we'd better put the sling back on, at least for the next couple of days. Sit still while I go into the bathroom and get the bottle of liniment from the medicine cabinet …"

"What for?" Instant suspicion.

"Not gonna mix you a drink with it, if that's what you're worried about. Sit still and shut up!"

Silence ensued and I brought the bottle of liniment back. Sat on the edge of the bed beside him. "Are you okay? You're not light-headed or anything, are you?"

He stared a hole between my eyes and ignored me. I opened the bottle and poured a small amount into my hand. Began a slow, gentle circular motion over the affected area, back around his spinal column and up across the rock-hard overdeveloped muscle of his upper arm. "Am I hurting you?"

He shook his head. "No … feels good. Thanks."

"Sure. Hold still."

He did, though his body swayed slightly in rhythm with the motion. I hoped I wouldn't put him to sleep and cause him to fall off the bed. I know I'm pretty strong for my size, but the idea of having to scoop 180 pounds of skinny dead weight off the bedroom floor was not my idea of a productive evening.

Finally the liniment had been fully absorbed into his skin. I recapped the bottle and placed it on the end table by the bed to put away later. "Where are your meds? Why don't you take them, and I'll get your shirt back on and the sling in place. Then you can lie down and get some rest. Okay?"

He nodded hazily, a little out of it, but eager for the Vicodin. "Coat pocket." His leg probably hurt like hell too.

When I dug in his pocket for the pill vial, the red necktie fell out onto the floor. He looked at it dumbly, then looked up at me. Busted! His expression was wary, but he pursed his lips and let it ride.

So did I.

He took the pills and sat half leaning against me. He smelled like mint, menthol and eucalyptus; not unpleasant. Together we got him back into the sweatshirt and I got the sling adjusted to where it would not press on the sore shoulder. I helped him swing his legs up onto the bed and gave him a hand rearranging himself against his pillows with a minimum of discomfort.

I wondered what was going through that head as he studied my face expectantly. I knew I was being baited with the extended silence, but I let that go too. If there was to be a discussion, he was the one who would have to initiate it.

Finally he could stand it no longer. "Not gonna comment about the damn tie?"

"What would you like me to say? 'What's up with the tie?'"

He nodded. "Something like that …"

"Okay … what's up with the tie?" I raised an eyebrow and stared at him. Made myself comfortable at the foot of the bed. Unwrapped the grey blanket and covered him to the waist with it. He was lying on top of the comforter. I hadn't thought to turn it down first. He squinted at me and grunted. Shifted his position to ease some of the pressure on his shoulder.

He sighed tragically. A male "Camille".

I waited. Dug myself in further at the foot of the bed. I kept staring … like I was waiting patiently for an explanation.

"Only thing you ever gave me that I could actually _use_ …"

_Well … shit!_

And then someone pounded at his front door.

Supper.

Crappy timing all around …

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

80


	19. Chapter 19

"The Light at the End of the Tunnel"

Chapter Nineteen

"Good Things About Having a Friend"

I walked out of his bedroom and back down the hallway, wallet already in my hand.

The kid at the front door held out two paper bags in his hands, stamped:

"Harold's 24-Hour Downtown Delicatessen"

The smells that found their way past the door and into the apartment were to die for. I was ravenous, and I hoped like hell that House was too. When he'd been detoxing in rehab, he'd spent way too much time in the bathroom bent over the porcelain puking his guts out. He must have lost at least ten pounds this week. I paid the kid for the food and gave him a good tip, then took the bags into the kitchen and opened them to savor what was inside.

In the first bag there were two huge plastic bowls full of beef vegetable soup. I peeked under one of the lids and looked at the thick gravy mixture that teemed with succulent lean meat and all those veggies. I inhaled deeply. It was piping hot, and even with the lids still on, steam arose and filled the whole place with a down-home aroma that spoke of large old-time families gathered together around the kitchen table.

I remembered the tiny vial in my jeans pocket. Now was the time. I took it out and unscrewed the cap. Tipped it and let a single little white tablet break the surface of the broth in the far bowl. I replaced the cap and dropped the vial back into the depths of my pocket … stirred House's soup a few strokes and put the lid back on.

The second bag held biscuits. Buttermilk. Just like home made, from Harold's spotless kitchen. Old Harold was Jewish, and he really knew what "good" was. Two cups of hot chocolate completed the feast. I pulled a footed lap tray out of the cupboard beside the refrigerator and set everything out on it. Dug two soupspoons out of the silverware drawer and a handful of paper towels from the roll on the counter … and a pair of scissors that I laid smack in the middle.

I walked back to the bedroom with the tray and paused in the doorway. House had leaned back against the pile of pillows and was sitting there with a look of consummate exhaustion on his narrow face.

"Hey," I said. "Wake up. I brought you something …"

A tired grin opened up the deep blue of his eyes. "Sure hope it's not another damn necktie …"

He repositioned himself restlessly against the pillows and watched me approach with the tray. I could tell he was aching, and I hoped a good hot stick-to-your-ribs meal … and a drop of "Love Potion #9" … might distract him.

"Nope," I said. "The first one caused enough hoopla for one week. Are you hungry?"

He closed one eye, wrinkled his nose appreciatively, and squinted with the other one. "I could eat, I guess. What _is_ that?"

I straddled his legs with the legs of the lap tray and set it down close to his concave belly. "Vegetable soup and buttermilk biscuits. Cocoa. Wintertime food. Can you handle the spoon with your left hand? Or would you rather I feed you?" I couldn't keep the smile out of my voice.

Come on House … throw me a crumb here! 

I got the evil eye on that one, and a raised eyebrow. "Anything I can do with the right hand, I can do just as well with the left," he scoffed.

I patted the top of his foot lightly before settling back onto the end of the bed, so he wouldn't flinch away from me. I removed the lids from the bowls and drink cups and laid them aside. Unwrapped the biscuits and handed him a paper towel. I did not, however, suggest that he tuck the edge of the towel beneath his collar. "Well, have at it then," I said. "Get it while it's hot." I picked up my spoon and dug into the bowl nearest me.

"Why the scissors?" He asked. He had a need for conversation to help keep himself focused. The spoon was in his left hand, just a little clumsy, just a little pathetic, just a little endearing. I kept my thoughts to myself, but knew he could read me like a book. I did not dare allow the tinge of regret to show in my eyes.

I smiled between bites. "Thought you might want to get rid of the prison jewelry."

It suddenly dawned on him what I meant and he jerked his right hand upward in reminder.

"Ow! Damn!"

He'd forgotten himself for a moment and winced at the sudden abrupt movement. "Not used to this arm being out of commission …" He stared at his hand as though it were a foreign object.

I reached over and grasped his fingers with my own. Held them still for a moment and snipped off the plastic strip that circled his wrist. I let him settle his hand back into the comfort of the sling. "Wanna keep this thing for a souvenir?"

"Oh sure. Right there in the corner with the airline ticket to Vancouver Island. As in 'don't worry … be happy' …"

He was moving into dangerous territory, maybe looking for an argument to keep his attention focused away from the discomfort of everything else. I opened my mouth to make a conciliatory comment, but he shook his head and sighed.

"Sorry, Wilson. Christ … I _hate_ this shit!"

I nodded. "I know …"

After an awkward interval, he resumed the struggle with the spoon in his left hand. He was definitely not as good a southpaw as he would have me believe. A few drops of broth and a stray lima bean decorated the front of his sweatshirt. He looked at me and made a face, then offered a silly grin. The brief moment of tension dissolved by itself.

We polished off the soup and the hot chocolate and all but half a biscuit.

He tossed down the paper towel and leaned back into the mound of pillows. He was tired. Spent. Nothing left in him but labored breathing and dark-veined lids closed; long lashes fanned out on his cheeks. An innocent six-year-old. My friend. I wished there were something more I could do to ease his pain, but I had already gone the limit with him and couldn't think of anything further. Nature would soon take its course.

I removed the tray and stood up, setting it over on the nightstand. I could feel him watching me through barely slitted eyes, and got the feeling that he would have liked to say something further, but couldn't find the words or the strength.

I didn't ask. By this time, he wouldn't have made much sense.

I took the tray into the kitchen and dumped the food containers in the trash. Went to the refrigerator and poured a small glass of milk.

When I got back to the bedroom, he was nearly asleep, turned slightly onto his left side, the lame arm out of the sling and resting straight down, across his hip. His hand was on the scar, softly kneading. I tipped two of his pills into my palm and offered them to him, along with the glass of milk.

"House …"

He glanced up, saw the meds and the milk, and his eyes glowed obsidian; luminous pools of shattered glass. Full of questions and consummately wary. Slowly fading.

"House … take them! You need them. You know best how to handle them … and how much you need … a lot better than I do. I made you a promise, and I don't intend to break it. C'mon House … it's what friends do."

He stared at me, pupils wide and searching. Then he shifted gingerly onto his back again and struggled to sit up. I helped him return his arm to the sling and held the milk and the meds in mock salute. "Bottoms up, Ace."

He tipped the meds and drained the milk, handed the glass back. Still watching me closely.

"What?"

"It's good … between us. It's good now … isn't it, Wilson?"

I nodded. Kept my voice low as I replied, unbelievably moved by his words. "Yeah, House. It's good. You and me … it'll _always_ be good."

I pulled up the grey blanket until it covered his shoulders. He was already drifting away again, and at the corners of his mouth, his dimples were showing.

I took the glass and the lap tray, turned out the light and slid silently out of the bedroom, tiptoeing needlessly on bare feet. I'd be spending the night on his couch. But it beat hell out of a lonely hotel room with only street sounds and neon lights for company.

- xxxxxxxx -

Sunlight had already painted the window shades a faded gold by the time he next opened his eyes. He lay still, allowing only a small squint and the slight movement of his head as a means of adapting to wakefulness.

He was not only amazed, but astounded to realize that his usually pain-wracked early morning body was relaxed and almost comfortable. He frowned, setting his brain to a quick diagnostic mode. He needed a quick solution to this strange, not-quite problem. He was afraid to move for fear that this new non-pain would vanish like smoke in the wind and be replaced with something he might not be able to handle.

He was warm. And confused. His damaged shoulder had that feeling about it that told him something was still not right, but whatever was wrong had been calmed to a quiet submission for now. The tips of his fingers also told him that the arm was still in a sling, but the aching stiffness of the night before was not bothering him. He had no idea why. The grey blanket from rehab was drawn up across his shoulders and he was relaxed beneath its warmth.

There was something different about his bum leg. The pins-and-needles stinging and painful cramps he was used to were simply not there. The leg was at ease and not even threatening to go into first-morning-movement muscle spasms.

His frown turned to worry. Did this mean his crippledness was about to transmute to partial paralysis? Fresh out of rehab, the coincidence was too much to contemplate. He had to know!

With his left hand he threw down the blanket and looked worriedly at his leg. Then he sighed deeply and allowed himself a tiny smile of relief. His leg was carefully supported from the bend of his knee on down to his grey-socked foot. He recognized one of the plump pillows from his living room couch.

Above the knee, a heating pad rested on low heat, positioned atop a dampened towel that covered the area of his thigh and the entire huge surgical scar. It was as though his leg was whole and healthy again … at least during this small expanse of time … however-long he would be allowed to enjoy it.

_Wilson! Wilson was in here while I was asleep. Damn him …he slipped me a Mickey!_

House pulled the blanket up again and languished comfortably against the pillows. What had he ever done to deserve a sense of devotion like the one extended to him constantly by this man?

He knew that James Wilson proudly revealed to anyone who would listen, that Gregory House was his best friend. Why? He had done nothing to deserve it, and he knew that it was not offered out of a sense of pity. "Pity" did not motivate a man to jokingly dissolve antidepressants in your morning coffee … or ask to move in with you because he'd had a fight with his wife … or worse … saw your damn cane in half in retaliation for sticking his hand in a pot of warm water while he slept.

Pity did not motivate Wilson to call him an idiot … or accuse him of being miserable simply because he enjoyed it. Wilson was there because he chose to be, and God knew House had done more than enough in the effort to see what it would take to chase him away.

Evidently … nothing.

And so he had begun the game of the red necktie.

Over the years, Wilson had remembered his birthdays and Christmases with maddening regularity. He remembered the little things because that's who he was. About three Christmases ago, Wilson had bought a dishwasher and had it installed under the counter in House's kitchen so House would not have to stand at the sink to wash dishes. House had never once used the dishwasher. Except to store more dirty dishes when the oven was already full. The only person who had ever used that dishwasher was …

Wilson!

Wilson had bought him expensive colognes and aftershaves, which had collected in House's medicine cabinet until Wilson began taking them home.

And then … on the weekend before House's court hearing when there was a good possibility that House would be spending some hard time in jail … Wilson showed up with that damned red necktie.

That was the one time when Wilson's dedication to a friendship which was in danger of deep-sixing, had really hit House where he lived. A simple red necktie with a "pricey"  
price tag still hanging on it, and tossed carelessly into his lap, had caused something within House to snap. Something had made him take a look at himself with a profound attitude of distaste and rude awakening.

Deep inside, he didn't want to "push it until it broke", but for a long long time he hadn't been thinking very clearly. His pain was at the top of the scale and it seemed that no one cared. He was taking more pills, and their supposed effects were no longer managing the pain. Rather than help him regulate the meds, everyone around him was seeking further methods of taking them away. House thought he was going out of his mind.

Then came Christmas Eve, and his downward spiral finally caused him to crash and burn.

They deserted him. Wilson threw in with Tritter. It looked bad. House could not get more meds … not even by stealing them from a dead man. How many dead men _were_ there in Princeton, New Jersey for him to steal enough meds from?

He had nowhere else to go. No other choice. Clean up or prepare to die alone …

Rehab. More pain. Wilson was angry. Would he actually desert this time?

When House looked around, his team was still there, but only because they needed his diagnostic skills to cure a patient. Cuddy was still there because she was an old friend, although Cuddy had doubts of her own. She was slowly backing away.

But Wilson. Wilson berated him, scolded and harangued him. Wilson was exasperated. Angry. Dispirited and heartbroken. But he went nowhere. And one night he'd plopped the bag with the necktie in House's lap as a symbol of what they'd been to each other once … and perhaps could be again.

Wilson's apology had been a red necktie in an ugly gift bag.

And House woke up to the way things really were.

"I'm sorry …" were not just empty words anymore …

And "thank you" could also be an extra car key in a little magnetic box, tossed haphazardly on the passenger seat of his best friend's car …

He'd worn that red necktie neatly and proudly in court. He'd kept it with him in his jail cell by stuffing it into his boxer briefs to hide it from the turnkey, and clung to it like a security blanket through the night. Where he went, it went. But he did not know how to tell Wilson what that small, bright piece of cloth really meant to him.

It meant the renewal of hope. It meant that a burden shared with a friend was only half as heavy.

Then it had slipped from his jacket pocket and slid onto the floor of his bedroom, and that had made Wilson look at him with a very strange look on his face.

House sat on the bed against his pillows, choked up. Mute.

Now, he lifted his good left arm to cover his eyes, wondering where the red necktie was at that moment. Was it still on the floor beside the bed? He was afraid to look because the pain might come back.

He lay still within the darkness created by the elbow bent across his eyes. He listened. The clock on the nightstand had told him when he'd first awakened, that it was nearing 7:00 a.m. It had to be way past that now.

There were sounds coming from the kitchen. Water running. The spigot on and off. The occasional clank of a pot or a pan on the surface units of the stove. The opening snap and closing thump of the refrigerator. A cupboard door banging. The dull thud of the breadbox lid. And then the heavenly aroma of fresh coffee … brewing.

He felt a niggling sensation of something soft, lightly brushing against something else; more of an intrusive rush and shift in the air than an actual sound. House uncovered his eyes and dropped his arm.

Wilson stood in the doorway, clad once again in a very old pair of House's black sweats and an old white tee shirt. Hair in his eyes, a day's growth of sparse beard, bare feet, one leg crossed lazily over the other. A spatula hanging from his left hand and a foolish grin on his cherubic face.

"Mornin', Ace. Sleep well? How do you feel? Hungry? Breakfast is soon ready. Wanna get up and come out? I've got cartoons on TV … just your style. Got French toast the way you like it. Bacon so crisp it flies apart when you pick it up. Coffee's perking and there's OJ in the glasses …"

House scowled and made a face. "Whoa … whoa … whoa … Buckaroo! Slow down a minute and give a poor sick cripple time to catch up …"

Wilson set the spatula down on the bureau beside the door and walked over to the bed. He paused to pick something off the floor, and one of House's questions was answered when he straightened again and the red necktie hung around his neck and dangled down both sides of his chest.

Wilson grinned.

So did House. "You called Cuddy … huh?"

"Yup. Not to worry. We both have the whole week off."

"I was … uh … afraid of that …"

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

87


	20. Chapter 20

"The Light at the End of the Tunnel"

Chapter Twenty

"You Win A Few, You Lose A Few"

"Do you need help getting out of bed and into the bathroom?"

I thought I'd better ask, because he didn't look too certain of things. He stared at the necktie I'd picked off the floor and draped around my neck … and there was something in his eyes that I couldn't quite interpret.

"No … I was just enjoying a couple minutes of feeling normal … compared to the way I usually wake up in the morning. I'm afraid to move. When I do it'll all go away."

I smiled, honored by his moment of frankness, yet regretting that the reprieve from pain was only temporary. "It may be easier if you take it very slowly today," I suggested. "I'll bring your breakfast in here when it's ready, and we'll figure things out from there."

He nodded. "Thanks …" he finally said. "For last night."

He did not meet my eyes. I was used to that. He was avoiding being specific. I knew simple truth was very difficult for him, and I was also used to him being extremely tight-lipped. I did notice, however, that the hollow darkness, which made his face look so haunted yesterday had lifted a bit, and you could begin to see the striking blueness of his eyes rather than the stark aftereffects of the pain.

"You're welcome," I said. "It's …"

"Yeah, I know," he interrupted quietly. "'It's what friends do …'"

"Not what I was gonna say!" I retorted sarcastically.

"Yeah? Well then what?"

"I was going to _say_ … ' it's time for me to get back out there and tend to our breakfast before we end up sharing burnt offerings.' We can eat, and then I'll give you a hand into the bathroom and back to the wheelchair."

He gave me a cursory nod and leaned back into his pillows. I got the impression the short conversation had tired him dramatically. I hoped I was wrong. Without further attempts at conversation, I turned and left, getting the impression he needed to be alone again in order to regroup. I was an intruder in his sanctuary during one of the times when he was most vulnerable. He was ashamed to have me be privy to his physical difficulties, and there was no way he would believe me if I assured him it was all right …

- xxxxxxxx -

House watched the doorway and listened closely as the muted thump of Wilson's bare heels retreated down the hallway. He gave it a good ten seconds before he moved.

His leg was beginning to wake up, petulant with its first demands for a pacifier, but he wasn't about to tell Wilson that. He needed to placate those demands before it began to scream like a spoiled infant. He lifted the heating pad and towel from where they rested on his thigh and set them aside. He followed the electrical cord with his fingers until he found the control and turned it to the off position, and gathered himself by increments, slowly drawing his upper body forward and away from its comfortable nest among the pillows. So far, so good. A twinge in the shoulder, but nothing major.

The sling was next. He could not reach the Vicodin bottle except with his right hand without getting out of bed, and he was not certain how that might go. He ducked his head and lifted the strap over it with his left arm. His right arm slid into his lap without too much fuss, and he flexed his fingers and wrist experimentally. All the hinges were working okay. He waited a moment, then dropped the sling onto the bed and slid his feet off the edge. He sat there, waiting for the volcano to erupt. It didn't. His bad leg was becoming more insistent, which was normal for him, but everything else seemed functional.

Next was to raise that right arm and reach across to the nightstand. His elbow came up and his hand stretched out. Pain hit him deep within the shoulder, as though Fatso had slammed into him with the cane all over again. He groaned aloud, but choked it off and swallowed it before Wilson heard it. His right arm collapsed and landed back at his side, his hand dangling over the edge of the bed.

_Fuck! I knew it was too good to be true!_

House slid painfully onto the floor and balanced on his left foot, looking around for the cane. He didn't see it and he didn't know where the hell it was.

_Fucked again!_

Hopping crazily, he swung around and snatched the Vicodin bottle left-handed, shoved it between his teeth. Clamping down on it furiously, he spun back again and barely caught himself against the footboard of the bed before he ended up on his ass. House paused, breathing heavily and noisily around the combination of adrenaline rush and the pill bottle that partially blocked his airway. He did not dare move again until he'd caught his breath and his bearings. The cane was there; caught between two winter coats, wrinkled blankets, and the mattress and the footboard. Right where Wilson had put it last night.

House grabbed it with his left hand and leaned hard. He quickly lowered his head and spit the pill bottle from between his teeth, dropping it into his right hand, which still managed to do _part_ of its job.

He had to get to the bathroom quickly, sit down on the hopper, take his meds, take a leak and a crap in that order, and then see what he could do about getting out of the sweat suit. The shirt was spattered with soup stains and the outfit was beginning to smell a little foreign. He must see about getting himself cleaned up. All before Wilson showed up at his doorway with breakfast.

_SHIT! _

Figuratively and literally!

House hung the cane from the wall between shower and commode, sat down on the seat and eased his way gingerly out of the dirty sweat suit. He managed to pull the shirt off and then worked the bottoms and the socks down and away from his feet by leaning crazily to his left. Then he pushed the whole works aside with his hand until it all landed on a heap in the middle of the floor. Finally he sat naked and aching and shivering on the john.

He did not move for a few minutes, allowing himself to recover. Then he pushed up carefully with the aid of the cane and hobbled over to the sink. The face that stared back at him from the mirror was about as pathetic as he ever wanted to see himself. Hollow eyes, sunken cheeks … and that "roughening coal pile" from the Roger Miller song. God! If nothing else, rehab had made him see himself as he really was, and he had nowhere to go but up. Even with the use of only one hand and one leg, he managed to groom himself to the point of looking, at the very least, like a human being again.

He limped back to the bedroom clumsily, imagining himself a drunken ape, undulating along, grunting and aimless. The Vicodin he had taken earlier were beginning to kick in a little, and the pain in his leg was taming down. Laboriously he dug clean underwear, socks, jeans and tee shirt out of the dresser and tossed them onto the bed, then plopped down, spent, beside them.

House was able to dress himself fairly well, with the notable exception of zipping the zipper and buttoning the top button of his jeans … _or_ being able to come anywhere close to pulling on clean socks and sliding his feet into his shoes. The pain forbade him the movement to accomplish any of that.

_Fuck it!_

He sat for a few minutes and let the fire in his shoulder die down. A quick look at his watch told him that barely ten minutes had elapsed from the time Wilson had left the room and the time he'd sat down on the bed to get dressed. It had seemed more like hours.

Finally he rose. Might as well wander out there and see how Wilson was coming along with breakfast. He needed to walk … loosen the cramped muscle in his leg before the pain began to build again and get the better of him …

His pants were gapped at the waistband and threatening to fall down over his narrow hips and almost-nonexistent ass. The floor was a little cold on his bare feet. He managed to make pretty good time for a crippled ape who couldn't seem to dress himself, and whose use of the cane in his left hand made him resemble a _blind_, crippled ape.

House arrived at the doorway between living room and kitchen just as Wilson was turning around from the coffee maker with a full cup of steaming coffee in his hand, obviously on his way to House's bedroom with it.

Their timing couldn't have been more perfect.

They both drew up quickly, stiff and startled, wordless and wide-eyed at sight of one another, eyeball to eyeball.

House steadied himself in the doorway and tugged upward at his pants with his left hand as the cane clattered to the floor.

Wilson jumped in surprise and a dollop of hot coffee slopped over the rim of the cup. He executed a curious backpedaling two-step to get out of the way before the hot brew hit him right at the crotch of the old sweatpants. His derriere jutted back out in the opposite direction, causing House to smirk with amusement in spite of presenting quite a foolish spectacle himself.

They stood for a moment and glared at each other.

House recovered his voice first, half choking on a combination of pain and laughter. "Breakfast ready yet, Twinkletoes?"

Wilson frowned, brows knitted menacingly.

"House? What in the hell are you _doing??"_

He set the hot coffee on the butcher block and hurried across to where House leaned propped in the doorway, barely upright. Carefully, he bent down and then straightened again with his shoulder under House's left arm, supporting his friend's weight, as they turned together and shuffled slowly across to the couch.

House's blue jeans gave up the ghost and slid down to his knees, even as Wilson lowered him gently so he could sit down on the wide old cushions. House sighed sheepishly, pointed to his half-mast pants and risked an upward glance with a look of six-year-old innocence. He would _not_ reveal to Wilson exactly how badly he was hurting.

Wilson stood back, not quite articulate, eyes and mouth wide with disbelief. His right hand lifted to the base of his neck and rubbed earnestly. His bare feet were planted on both sides of House's bare feet, and for a few moments he could not command his voice to make a sound anywhere near audible.

House simply waited for the tirade to begin.

He continued to stare upward, suddenly aware that Wilson still had the necktie looped around his neck. The wide end hung down lower than the narrow end, and something wet had soiled the tip of it to … perhaps … two inches up.

"You fucked up my red necktie!" House growled with sudden righteous indignation. Now he realized that he had turned the tables on Wilson. Wilson would not yell at him because Wilson was now standing there and looking down at himself, seeing the end of the red necktie, which looked as though it had been dipped in maple syrup.

They glared at each other again.

Impasse.

Wilson snorted into one hand with sudden good humor. A spurt, then silence. Another spurt, then full-blown laughter that opened his handsome face and made his dark brown eyes sparkle with a rare beauty that nearly made House gasp.

"What's so freakin' funny? You ruined my goddamn necktie!"

"It's your fault, you idiot!"

"Whaddaya mean, 'my fault?'"

"I had to wash your damn dishes before I could make breakfast," Wilson answered with a satisfied smirk. "You had no pans left. I looked for them … and guess where I found them!"

House said nothing, because the answer was obvious.

"In the dishwasher, that's where! They looked like they'd been there for _a month!_ I had to scrub some of them in the sink. Your damned necktie probably got drowned in soapy water. If you'd run the _dishwasher_ once in awhile instead of using it for a dumping place, stuff like that wouldn't happen!"

It was a moot subject. House shrugged. Bad choice. His hurt shoulder caught him hard and immediately, and he gasped. His left hand rose to the rim of his shoulder blade and clutched the damaged muscle. Quickly, he turned away from Wilson's scrutiny, but he was far too late to escape the other man's compassionate gaze.

Wilson was on his knees. "House! Oh God, House … what am I gonna do with you?"

"I don't give a fuck _what_ you do …" House gasped. He was angry and humiliated.

Wilson froze, thrown for a loop.

"… as long as you stick around and keep my damn crippled ass out of trouble."

Wilson gulped. "I'm not … sure … how long I'd be up for that. You're gonna give me a heart attack!"

"Aw Wilson …" House wheedled, "I'm just a poor defenseless, handicapped …"

He dropped his head, finding the soreness impossible to ignore any longer. What had begun as a sarcastic joke backfired quickly. He began to fall forward, blacking out.

Wilson's hands eased him back gently and forced his return to consciousness.

Then his reluctant body was being expertly slid around on the couch, his legs lifted up and onto the surface and straightened out. He heard Wilson's soft chuckle and saw his friend staring with raised eyebrows at his delinquent blue jeans, still hanging at half-mast off his skinny rear end. He smiled in further embarrassment, but forced himself to relax, trying to ride through the pain.

Wilson removed the second couch pillow from under his head and eased it beneath his calf and foot.

"Lift your skinny butt!" Wilson ordered.

House did.

His friend pulled up the blue jeans, zipped the zipper and buttoned the button. "Well," he finally grumbled, "that certainly improves the view from where _I_ stand …"

"Screw you!" House's left hand still clutched at his throbbing right shoulder. He had seldom felt so completely embarrassed and happy-miserable and totally exposed in his life. From ultimate peace to ultimate pain, all within the space of about fifteen minutes. It sucked!

He frowned, attempting to look pained and forlorn, but it wasn't working. The two of them were in the middle of a fantasy vaudeville show. He pursed his lips, but a snicker of wry amusement escaped anyway. He let himself ride with it and chuckled. Looked over at Wilson.

To his surprise, his friend was flat on his ass on the floor at his side, shoulders shaking, doing his best to contain the laughter, and not succeeding. They gave it freedom and went along.

When the laughter faded, they both understood how much they had always meant to each other. Nothing on Earth could take that away.

Breakfast went into the garbage. There was nothing Wilson could possibly do now to resurrect it. Everything that had smelled so delectable a half hour before was now either stone cold, or the consistency of old leather. Or both.

Wilson went out to his car and got his medical bag. A shot of Demerol was certainly in order. Stop the pain in its tracks and then try to convince this stubborn jackass of a best friend that abusing a body for the sake of macho pride was definitely not the way to impress someone who already knew him so well.

Wilson helped House back to bed, pulled down the covers, pulled off the blue jeans again, and deposited House firmly beneath the covers.

House lay against his mound of pillows and gazed hazily up at Wilson with huge, happy cerulean cow-eyes. Softly he began to sing: "Aint she sweet … see 'er comin' down the street … now I ask you very confidentially … aint she sweet …"

Wilson smiled, shook his head in exasperation. He bent down and kissed House gently on the forehead.

_Apply directly to the forehead!_

House would never remember it.

He fingered the soiled necktie that still hung loosely around his neck. He then turned on his heel and went back to the kitchen to clean up the mess …

… and maybe run the damn dishwasher …

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

95


	21. Chapter 21

"The Light at the End of the Tunnel"

Chapter Twenty-One

"The Light Comes On …"

It's been three days.

Today is Wednesday; it's nine in the morning. I was up and showered, shaved and dressed by seven.

I'd just put a chicken in the crock-pot within the past fifteen minutes and cranked it up to "high".

Another follow-up call came from Cuddy a few minutes ago.

And House is still asleep. At least he was the last time I looked.

Cuddy was anxious for further information about his shoulder injury and the added damage to his leg. I kept my voice low and retreated to the kitchen where the electronic white noise of the refrigerator motor would blank out the sound of my voice and keep it from finding a path to his ears. He has the hearing of a Great Horned Owl!

All I could tell her was that the bruise on his shoulder was healing slowly, but I still would not let him use the cane in his right hand. His leg had taken a sudden twist to the side, and his knee had slammed into one of the end tables when the rehab patient with Delirium Tremens grabbed the cane and hit him across the shoulder with it. The damage was not to his ACL as I had first feared, but a pull in the internal lateral ligament when he'd tried to twist out of the way.

His injuries were annoying and painful, but not serious. Most of the swelling had already dissipated. I think Cuddy's biggest concern was whether both of us would be coming back to work next Monday. She asked if I'd seen any change in his drug usage.

I told her that House was making an honest effort to wean himself from his former excessive use of Vicodin, and as far as I could tell, he was doing okay on his own. I also told her that it was no longer up to me to tell him how to regulate himself. If the pain was worse, he would, of course use more meds. If it was not as bad, he would use less. He knew what he needed and I would continue to prescribe for him. I owed him that, I said, and she did not argue.

"House didn't think he was special," I added. "He thought he was justified. And he was. The police didn't get it. Or else they 'got it' all too well, and Tritter decided to make it personal anyway."

Cuddy agreed and thanked me for bringing her up to date on our favorite delinquent. We laughed together like conspirators. She assured me she had most of the info she needed to fill out an accident report for hospital insurance. The rest was up to "The Powers That Be" at Drug and Alcohol. She had just called to sound me out, and asked me to tell House she was thinking about him.

I did not mention what I thought he would probably do with that kind of information, and we rang off.

I laid my phone down on the butcher block and tiptoed back the hallway to check on his majesty. He'd been sleeping a lot during the daytime since leaving rehab, and I did not question it, or him. Ever since the infarction it had been difficult for him to get a full night's sleep. The pain and the cramping and the nerve spasms had a tendency to wake him at odd hours, and the only way he could compensate was to catnap during the day. It had taken me a long time to catch onto that and see it for what it was, rather than a sloughing off of his duties. Also, it's not as though he would actually condescend to tell me any of that straight out!

I stuck my head around the corner into his room and was greeted with glistening slits of barely opened eyes and a crooked smile. "Communing with Mother Superior, huh?"

"How did you know I was on the phone? I even went into the kitchen so I wouldn't disturb you …"

"Bull! I heard you answer your cell phone and then drift off into the wild blue yonder, never to be heard from again. Who else would you be talking to … that you wouldn't want me to overhear?"

"I thought you were asleep."

"You _hoped_ I was asleep. There's a difference."

I sighed. "Would you like some help getting dressed?"

He opened his eyes wider and glared at me for a moment, deciding whether or not to take me up on the offer. "Yeah. Lying around here hasn't done anything to help the situation. I guess I need to move. 

I searched his face. "You sore?"

"Some …."

Coming from him, that was a broad admission if I'd ever heard one. "Want me to work with it?"

"Yeah … could you?"

"Sure …"

It was very revealing when he leaned forward willingly, inviting me to pull the sling and his old threadbare tee shirt over his head. He was finally gathering a modicum of trust from somewhere inside himself, choosing to honor my integrity once again, in spite of the many months of suspicion we'd harbored against each other for most of the year.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and reached out to touch the spot on his sound shoulder where the arm sling fastened at the back of his neck. He allowed the contact without flinching and I worked slowly, drawing it off him. He let his hand fall into his lap and worked the fingers and wrist cautiously. "Try flexing your elbow," I told him, "while I get the liniment out of the bathroom." I rose again and left him to it.

When I came back, he was supporting his elbow with the palm of his left hand, moving the joint slowly back and forth. "Better?" I asked. I returned to my spot and laid the liniment bottle atop the blanket.

He nodded. "Yeah. Catches a little, but the flexion is better than yesterday and the day before. It's just the shoulder that doesn't work. It still hurts like hell, right at the spot where that bastard poleaxed me …"

I eased his shirt off over his head and dropped it in a heap beside him. The muscles of his back and rib cage lay tight and hard beneath his skin. The long, narrow mark where he had been hit with the cane was beginning to yellow out and turn dark around the edges. I concentrated on that spot, rubbing in slow gentle circles with the small amount of liniment I'd poured into my palm.

He rode with it, letting his body sway from side to side in rhythm with the movement of my hand. The evidence of his relief from tension wafted through the air around us, and as I worked, I wondered what he was thinking.

Even as that idea was cruising around inside my head, he risked a brief look into my face. "What'd ya do with my necktie?"

"Huh?" Like a hundred times before, he'd caught me unprepared for the workings of that bear trap mind.

"My necktie, Wilson. The 'gift' you brought me to wear to my court hearing … that red thing you had hanging around your neck for the past two days … looked like you dipped it in the toilet. _ That_ necktie?"

"Oh. Yeah … I think it's in the kitchen somewhere. You want it?"

"What's it doing in the kitchen?"

"I dunno … it just landed there. It kind of smells. Willya please be still so I can finish up here?"

"Ummm …" He pulled away from me and leaned back, rotating his shoulders cautiously as he did so. "Thanks," he said finally. "Feels better. I think I need to get up now. Get things moving again. Sick of doing nothing."

He was already tossing the bedcovers off his legs, pushing his reluctant right leg off the edge of the bed with the foot of his left one. He sat balanced for a moment, both feet planted on the floor, looking around the room as though he'd never seen it before. "Where's my cane?"

I stared at him and slid a little closer to his side. "It's still in the kitchen where you dropped it the other day. What about the chair?"

He scowled. "I'm sick of the chair. Need to walk. Move. Is all my stuff out in the kitchen? You been using my cane too?"

"Why would I want to use your cane?"

"You were wearing my necktie …"

I sighed. This was getting nowhere. "Stay put. I'll get it. Do you want to get dressed first?"

He looked down at his naked chest and then looked at me with disdain. "After you get my cane."

I left him. Walked to the kitchen and retrieved the cane from the corner by the doorway. The chicken in the crock-pot was beginning to smell pretty good. I hefted the cane over my shoulder like a musket and ambled back to the bedroom. Handed it across.

He grasped it … right-handed … and began to lever himself up. I watched, hitching a breath between my teeth, surprised when he didn't go on his ass on the floor. "House?"

He grinned. "Shut up, Wilson! It works." He moved around the bedroom cautiously, easing himself into it. The pulled ligament in his knee caused him to toe in with the right foot. The combination of that and the obvious pain in his shoulder had me poised to catch him any second. But he kept at it stubbornly until he'd worked out a way to move about with enough confidence to make it feasible. Once he had shoes on, he would probably have better control of the knee and the foot. I suggested … again … that he get dressed.

A half hour, a clean shirt, a clean pair of blue jeans, his heavy grey socks and a pair of sturdy Nikes later, he got up and tried it again. To my relief, it was better. But the subsequent trip to the couch tired him out.

When I returned to the kitchen, he was sprawled on the couch with the remote in his hand, happily channel surfing and oblivious to my presence. So I loaded the

dishwasher, added detergent and closed it up. I was slowly catching up with the backlog of dirty dishes and pots and pans. The kitchen was gradually becoming populated once more with pots hanging from the pot rack, mixing bowls on the counter and glasses in the cupboards.

I was about to flip the switch that would turn on the scalding water, but spied one more item crumpled near the edge of the butcher block. I scooped it up, lowered the door and placed it inside on the top rack. Then I flipped the switch and the machine activated its wash cycle.

I sat beside him on the couch while the dishwasher went through its entire little dog and pony show. We saw "SpongeBob", an ancient episode of "Hogan's Heroes", and another Godawful rerun of "The Munsters". I was bored out of my skull. House sat glued to the screen like a rapt six-year-old … which, sometimes, he was. I caught him working his thigh and knee with his fingers only once, but ignored him. He had not reached for the Vicodin bottle. I decided he would do so if he needed them.

When the dishwasher finally stopped, I went back to the kitchen, unloaded it and put everything away. All his plates and saucers and coffee cups were back in the cupboards where they belonged, and we would actually have enough utensils to keep from having to eat our dinner with our fingers.

I got out his ironing board and iron from their dusty corner when I heard the theme song from "Gunsmoke". Put them away again when I heard Doc Adams greet Matt Dillon and Kitty Russell in the bar of the Long Branch Saloon. When I heard Chester say, "Howdy, Mis-tur Dil-lon …" I walked back into the living room and sat down beside him on the couch.

I held out my arm directly across his field of vision.

From my fingertips dangled the red necktie, now the survivor of a trip through all the cycles of his dishwasher, and no longer looking like it had been … as House had accused: "dipped in the toilet". Actually, it looked pretty good. Good as new, even. I had ironed it with a damp tea towel lying on top, and you could not tell it had been mistreated by a negligent best friend.

That same best friend was doing his damndest to live up to his title, and had a silly smile on his face when Gregory House's jaw dropped in surprise and reached out his hand to accept "the only present I'd ever given him that he'd been able to use …"

Then he turned toward me with his opposite hand … the lame one … his eyes snapping blue sparks … and cuffed my chin gently with the backs of his fingers.

It was the best "thank you" I had ever received.

House chuckled, took the damned necktie and looped it back around my neck … in the same fashion as I'd had kept it hanging there for the past two days.

I got up and went to the kitchen to dish up our supper before I said something stupid.

We had chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy and a salad for dinner. We didn't talk much. All the important things that needed to be said had been said. All the amends that needed to be made had been made. We could almost see the glimmer of light that awaited us at the end of the tunnel.

When we got ready to turn in for the night, I massaged his back and shoulder again and assisted him to lift his legs onto the mattress. He watched me wordlessly for long moments. Then: "Life is packed with irony sometimes … you know that, Wilson?"

"Yeah," I admitted. "It is. You don't fuck with it, because it finds a way to fuck ya back!"

He stared at me for using that word. Twice. Then he nodded. "Riight …"

That's when I reminded him: "Hey … you owe me a steak dinner, remember?"

I turned off the light on my way out and started to walk back toward the living room. The red necktie felt warm upon my shoulders.

The smile in his voice was obvious. I heard the bedclothes shift as he rolled over onto his side. "Yeah … I remember. Rather owe it to ya than cheat ya out of it though.

"Nite, Wilson …"

"'Nite, House."

_I love you too … _

But I didn't say it out loud.

The End

100


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